Posts Tagged ‘lavrov’
Russia accuses US of using ‘cold war tactics’ over Magnitsky Act
Russia has accused the United States of engaging in cold war tactics and threatened tit-for-tat retaliation after the US Senate passed a bill banning Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from travelling to the country.
The US Senate on Thursday passed the Magnitsky Act, named after a Russian lawyer for London-based investor William Browder, who died in prison, as part of a bill that lifts Soviet-era trade restrictions on Russia. The bill, which must be signed by President Barack Obama before coming into force, includes a visa ban and asset freeze on those officials involved in Magnitsky’s death.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said after meeting Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, in Dublin late on Thursday that Russia would retaliate. “We will also close entry to Americans who are guilty of human rights violations,” he said.
Many Russians laughed off the threat, noting that the Russian propensity to keep assets and property in the US is not reciprocated. “And now they’ll shut down entry to Russia for some American officials who are involved, let’s say, in the death of Afghan kids. What are they going to do, cry?” Margarita Simonyan, the Kremlin-friendly head of Russia Today, the state-run international news channel, wrote on Twitter.
The Kremlin marshalled the Young Guard, the youth wing of the ruling United Russia party, to protest. The group held a protest in front of the US embassy in Moscow on Friday with the sign: “The US is a police state.”
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Magnitsky Bill Likely to Reopen Old Wounds
Historical mistrust and relatively weak trade links could amplify the Magnitsky Act’s damage to U.S.-Russian relations, although Washington will likely use caution in applying sanctions to Russians suspected of human rights violations, analysts said.
“In the absence of a solid background of trust and partnership, even relatively insignificant episodes can sour relations and leave a trace for a long time,” said Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Over the weekend, Russian condemnations escalated over the U.S. Senate’s nearly unanimous passage of the so-called Magnitsky Act, which normalizes trade relations with Russia and authorizes sanctions on Russians suspected of human rights violations.
“The Magnitsky Act is an attempt to interfere in our internal affairs,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a group of allies of President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, adding that parliament’s reaction should be “collective and multi-partisan,” RBC reported.
Passage of the Magnitsky bill, which U.S. President Barack Obama said he would sign, appeared to mark a low point in the U.S.-Russian relationship under Obama, who has pursued improved relations under the “reset” policy, resulting in Russia’s joining the World Trade Organization and bilateral agreements on visas and nuclear weapons.
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Russia accuses US of using ‘cold war tactics’ over new law
The Guardian
Row comes after the Senate passes Magnitsky Act banning Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from the US.
Russia has accused the United States of engaging in cold war tactics and threatened tit-for-tat retaliation after the US Senate passed a bill banning Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from travelling to the country.
The US Senate on Thursday passed the Magnitsky Act, named after a Russian lawyer for London-based investor William Browder who died in prison, as part of a bill that lifts Soviet-era trade restrictions on Russia. The bill, which must be signed by President Barack Obama before coming into force, includes a visa ban and asset freeze on those officials involved in Magnitsky’s death.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said after meeting Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, in Dublin late on Thursday that Russia would retaliate. “We will also close entry to Americans who are guilty of human rights violations,” he said.
Many Russians laughed off the threat, noting that the Russian propensity to keep assets and property in the US is not reciprocated. “And now they’ll shut down entry to Russia for some American officials who are involved, let’s say, in the death of Afghan kids. What are they going to do, cry?” Margarita Simonyan, the Kremlin-friendly head of Russia Today, the state-run international news channel, wrote on Twitter.
The Kremlin marshalled the Young Guard, the youth wing of the ruling United Russia party, to protest. The group held a protest in front of the US embassy in Moscow on Friday with the sign: “The US is a police state.”
“The US positions itself as a country of freedom. And yet, the American leadership is itself infringing upon the freedom of citizens of another country,” Maxim Rudnev, a member of the Young Guard, said in a statement. “It’s worth asking: is the United States deserving of hosting the Statue of Liberty?”
The Russian foreign ministry lashed out on its official Twitter account late on Thursday, saying the Senate’s adoption of the Magnitsky Act “will adversely affect the prospects of bilateral co-operation”. Then it went further, writing that the move “is like something out of the theatre of the absurd”.
“Apparently, Washington has forgotten what year this is and still thinks the cold war is going on,” the official account wrote. “It is perplexing and preposterous to hear human rights complaints from the US, where torture and kidnapping are legal in the 21st century.”
“This biased approach is nothing but a vindictive desire to counter Russia in world affairs,” it said.
Sergei Magnitsky was arrested in late 2008 while uncovering an alleged $230m (£143m) fraud carried out by a group of Russian police and tax officials. He was found dead in a Russian prison nearly one year later, after being repeatedly denied medical treatment and allegedly tortured. Browder, who hired him to investigate the fraud, has lobbied hard for Russian officials to be punished abroad, noting that justice in his lawyer’s death is unlikely to come in Moscow.
A new poll released on Friday found that 39% of Russians supported the US law, versus 14% who were against it.
Obama praised the Senate’s decision to pass the bill 92-4 on Thursday and is expected to sign it into law soon. займы на карту без отказа hairy woman https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php zp-pdl.com займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно
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Lavrov Offers New Warning to U.S. Over Magnitsky Bill
cUsing some of his harshest language yet, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that the adoption of the Magnitsky bill by the U.S. Congress would have disastrous consequences for U.S.-Russian relations.
Lavrov, speaking during an interview with U.S. television talk-show host Charlie Rose, said Moscow supported a dialogue on human rights with Washington but did not want to be “lectured” or “judged” through efforts like the Magnitsky bill.
“This would be certainly something which will be detrimental to our relationship,” he said, speaking in English. “Attempts to interfere in the legal procedures of other countries are not really welcome by normal states, normal governments, and this is absolutely the case between Russia and the United States.”
Returning to a well-trodden Kremlin line, Lavrov insisted that Russia was interested in discussing human rights, particularly cases involving the abuse and sometimes death of adopted Russian children at the hands of their U.S. parents and the imprisonment of convicted arms trader Viktor Bout.
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Sergey Lavrov discusses Magnitsky on Charlie Rose show
Lavrov, speaking during an interview with U.S. television talk-show host Charlie Rose, said Moscow supported a dialogue on human rights with Washington but did not want to be “lectured” or “judged” through efforts like the Magnitsky bill.
Lavrov spoke to Rose during a visit to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly this week.
“This would be certainly something which will be detrimental to our relationship,” he said, speaking in English. “Attempts to interfere in the legal procedures of other countries are not really welcome by normal states, normal governments, and this is absolutely the case between Russia and the United States.” hairy women hairy women https://zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php займ на карту срочно без отказа
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Clinton Tells Russia That Sanctions Will Soon End
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged Saturday that the United States would soon lift cold-war-era trade sanctions on Russia, but she did not address human rights legislation in Congress that has so far stalled passage, infuriated the Kremlin and become an unexpected issue in the American presidential race.
Attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting here in place of the campaigning President Obama, Mrs. Clinton welcomed Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization last month. And she said that the United States must now normalize trade relations so that American businesses can reap the benefits of Russia’s membership, including lower tariffs for American products.
Although the sanctions included in the 1974 law known as Jackson-Vanik are waived each year and have no practical effect, they violate W.T.O. rules, which could allow Russia to retaliate against American businesses.
The effort to grant Russia normal trade status, however, has become entangled in legislation that would punish Russian officials accused of abusing human rights, denying them visas and freezing their assets. That has raised doubts that any agreement on lifting the Jackson-Vanik provisions can be reached before the November election.
The human rights bill, which has bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in prison in 2009 after being prosecuted on charges that his supporters argue were manufactured to cover up official corruption.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential challenger, injected the issue into the campaign last week by issuing a statement saying that, as president, he would normalize trade with Russia only if the Magnitsky bill were enacted. The Obama administration, by contrast, has opposed the bill as too expansive and lobbied against mixing it with the trade issue, while expressing support for addressing rights abuses in Russia in some way.
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Clinton sees Congress moving on Russia trade measure
The U.S. Congress may move this month to upgrade trade relations with Russia, a key part of the Obama administration’s effort to bolster sometimes strained ties with Moscow and open the Russian market to more U.S. companies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday.
Clinton, addressing the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) meeting in Vladivostok, said the Obama administration was working closely with Congress on lifting the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, Cold War-era legislation which has blocked normal trade privileges for Russia.
“To make sure our companies get to compete here in Russia, we are working closely with the United States congress to terminate the application to Jackson-Vanik to Russia and grant Russia permanent normalized trade relations,” Clinton said.
“We hope that the Congress will act on this important piece of legislation this month.”
Congress is under pressure to approve the permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) bill because of Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) last month, a move the United States strongly supported.
U.S. business groups hope the House of Representatives and Senate will pass the legislation in September before lawmakers return home to campaign. Businesses worry that without it U.S. firms may not get access to newly opened services markets and be subject to potential arbitrary Russian trade reprisals.
But with concerns in Congress about Moscow’s support for Iran and Syria, as well as its broader human rights record, the timing of a vote remains unclear.
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Kremlin’s Omerta Blocks Justice for Magnitsky
After the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved the Magnitsky Act on Tuesday, the bill is one step closer to becoming law.
Unlike the House version of the act, which targets only suspected and convicted Russian criminals, the Senate’s version effectively de-emphasizes Russia by applying visa restrictions and asset freezes to suspected and convicted criminals all over the world.
It was almost as if the Senate was trying to say to President Putin: “Nothing personal, Vladimir. We are against all criminals, not just Russian ones.”
But this seeming nod to Russia was lost on Putin. During the Group of 20 summit last week, he said once again that if the bill becomes law, Russia would apply symmetrical measures against Americans. Essentially, he was saying Russia would “retaliate,” to pull an old Cold War term out of the closet.
But presumably Russian authorities would ban convicted and suspected U.S. criminals from entering Russia anyway, regardless of the Magnitsky Act. Let’s hope that Russia’s “retaliation” doesn’t mean it will pick Americans at random — innocent businessmen, journalists or academics who are working in Russia or who want to work there — just to show Washington that it can make its own “symmetrical” blacklist if push comes to shove.
Amid all the bluster and feigned indignation around the Magnitsky Act, Putin is conveniently ignoring the fact that there has been a “Magnitsky list” of sorts used by both the United States and Russia for decades. Washington has always denied visas to convicted and suspected criminals.
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Obama set to press Putin on Syria at G20
After a week when it sometimes felt as if the cold war had never ended, Barack Obama will finally get some quiet time on Monday with Vladimir Putin to press the new Russian president on the crisis in Syria.
With senior diplomats from both countries trading unusually aggressive barbs in recent days, Mr Obama plans to use a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Mexico to privately test whether the US and Russia can find common ground on Syria, according to senior US officials.
The first encounter between the two presidents since Mr Putin’s return to presidential office will be a critical showdown in the diplomacy of the Syrian crisis. But it also will provide an indication of where US-Russia relations are headed under a leader who has a notoriously sceptical view of US power – and who declined to attend last month’s G8 summit at Camp David, a move many interpreted as a snub.
Mr Obama faces the delicate task of trying to forge a good working relationship with Mr Putin while Congress is moving close to passing the Magnitsky bill, which criticises Russia’s human rights record.
Complicating matters even more, Mr Obama is in the midst of an election campaign in which his Republican opponent is looking to pounce on any signs of concessions.
“The Magnitsky case … supports my point that we are in for much more difficult times in the relationship with the US,” says Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
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