Addressing the International Business Council at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent a clear message to the administration of US President Barack Obama. He said a new page in bilateral relations could be opened by abolishing the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
On January 29, Prime Minister Putin tried to convince World Economic Forum delegates that Russia did not claim the right to preferential treatment from the international community, and that mutual openness was enough.
"I have already said we don't need help. We are not people with limited capabilities," Putin said. ("We are not handicapped," he said in his opening speech.)
Russia is ready to cooperate, but expects its partners to reciprocate, so that everything would be civilised and fair. Take the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), for one. Moscow, which has a stake in EADS, hopes the company will relocate some of its production facilities to Russia. However, the European Union prefers not to discuss the subject.
Although the Soviet Union is no more and former Soviet Jews are free to emigrate, the Jackson-Vanik amendment remains in force.
"When the US Congress once again refused to abolish the amendment, explaining its decision by the need to protect the chicken-leg market, a prominent Israeli leader wrote to me that he had not served time in a Soviet prison for chicken meat, and that he did not understand what Congress members were doing there," Mr Putin told the International Business Council.
When Council members looked at him in astonishment, Mr Putin added: "It's true. That's what he wrote to me."
Moscow is hinting unambiguously that the new US administration should abolish the amendment if it wants to prove that its attitude to Russia has changed.