U.S. Senators created a Catch 22 for Obama, hit reset issue – Lavrov

MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) – The adoption of the Magnitsky Act in the United States was inevitable, Senators set a trap for U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes.

“I don’t think this (the adoption of the Magnitsky Act) was the first thing Obama did when he was re-elected. This was inevitable,” he said in an interview with Russia Today channel.

“When the senators — Senator Cardin and some others — introduced this idea, it was clearly done to create a Catch 22 for the administration,” Lavrov said.

The United States would have repealed the Jackson-Vanik amendment anyway, he said “because with Russia having acceded to the WTO, keeping Jackson-Vanik would mean depriving American companies of the benefits of the Russian Federation’s membership in the WTO.”
“I think, the Republicans decided to have this trick and hinge the removal of Jackson-Vanik to the Magnitsky Act. Which, at that moment, was most likely done against President Obama,” Lavrov said.

He said that if the United States wanted to deny visas to a number of Russian citizens or freeze their accounts “they could do it without a adopting a law, and without making a show”.

“But they believed that one of the achievements that the administration had prided itself upon for the last four years was the ‘reset’ with the Russian Federation. And they wanted to hit Obama exactly on this ‘reset’ thing,” Lavrov said.

“It’s unfortunate; because it lets domestic politics dominate the international agenda, and in the minds of many, also dominate almost everything that’s happening between Russia and the United States. And that is much, much more comprehensive and complex than human rights as interpreted by American senators,” the Russian foreign minister said.