Russia’s foreign secretary said relations between Moscow and Washington need – in his words, a new “reset” – referring to U.S. President Barack Obama’s effort to improve ties with Russia in the early days of his administration.
In a Russian television interview airing Sunday, Sergey Lavrov blamed the United States for the strained ties between the two countries.
Lavrov said Russia wants to normalize the relations with the U.S., but he said “it was not Russia who destroyed them.”
Washington and the European Union have accused Moscow of supporting a pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine and have imposed financial sanctions, which have been repeatedly tightened since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
Complains about US policy
On Saturday, Lavrov, in an address to the United Nations General Assembly, said, “Washington has openly declared its right to unilateral use of force,” and is “trying to decide for everyone what is good or evil.”
Lavrov cited the 1999 NATO bombing of Serb targets in Kosovo, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya as examples of what he called “arrogant [Western] policy.”
He also described Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in April as a choice made by the Russian-speaking population there.
Immediately ahead of Lavrov’s address, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the annexation a crime – a characterization shared by Washington and the 28-nation European Union.
Steinmeier accused Moscow of having “unilaterally changed existing borders in Europe” and said Moscow “thus broke international law.”
No mention of Ukraine actions
Lavrov made no reference to Western accusations that the Kremlin sent troops and heavy weaponry into eastern Ukraine to back the separatist rebellion near the Russian border. Nor did he refer to Western charges of Kremlin complicity in the July shootdown of a Malaysian airliner in Ukraine airspace.
U.S. analysts said the aircraft with 298 people on board was destroyed by a Russian surface-to-air missile battery supplied by the Kremlin.
Moscow has denied involvement and insists Russian troops inside Ukraine in recent months were acting as volunteers.
At the White House Saturday, Obama said the United States is leading a global effort “to rally the world against Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
Obama also vowed that the United States and its allies “will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy.”
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