Moscow Says It Is Ready to Pick Up Positive Signals from US

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 15, 2013) ­ President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov accused the US administration on Monday of demonstrating “conflicting behavior,” but said Moscow was ready to develop and deepen its ties with the US.

The official’s comments were made during a visit by US national security advisor Tom Donilon to Moscow.

“On the one hand, the Obama administration wants to actively develop ties with us in many areas, and that is quite a positive thing,” Ushakov said, “but on the other, it does not want to fight for bilateral cooperation within the United States, and does not want to rein in some Russophobes who are putting spokes in the wheel of our cooperation.”

Ushakov called the publication of a blacklist of Russian personae non grata by the US “something new in diplomacy” and “at odds with all the rules that have evolved over centuries.”

On Friday, the US published a list of 18 Russians Washington deems complicit in human rights abuses. The Russians listed will be unable to enter the US and any assets they own there will be frozen. In a mirror response, on Saturday Russia published a list of 18 US officials banned from Russia.

Every country has its secret blacklists, but no one has ever spoken about it out loud before, Ushakov said, speaking after Donilon handed over a message from US President Barack Obama to Putin in the Kremlin earlier that day.

Obama’s message contains a number of proposals to deepen bilateral dialogue and cooperation, and Moscow will study them in depth, Ushakov said.

Moscow is ready to “pick up” the positive signals that are coming from the Obama administration, he said without elaborating.

Russia has always been willing to develop and deepen its ties with the US without any constraints, Ushakov said.

“All the constraints come from the other side; there are none on our part,” he said.

Obama’s message to Putin, “couched in a constructive tone,” touches on matters of cooperation in the defense and technology sector, including missile defense and nuclear issues, Ushakov said.

The Kremlin press service said on Friday that Donilon would discuss preparations for a meeting between Obama and Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in early February that Obama was unlikely to visit Russia before September, when he is due to attend the G20 leaders’ summit in St. Petersburg.