Republican senator thinks America should be tough on Moscow.
The former Republican candidate for US President, Senator John McCain, has attacked Barak Obama's administration over its attitude to Russia. He notes that no breakthrough in Washington's relations with Moscow has taken place while Russia still pursues a hard line in domestic policy and with regard to its neighbours. But he ruled out a return to the Cold War.
"I am amused how we latch on to fragments of President Medvedev's phrases to persuade ourselves that there is a major breakthrough in our discussions," McCain said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro. He suggested that Vladimir Putin, thought to be a hardliner by many in the West, continues to play the leading role in Russian politics and that the current President adheres to his former course.
McCain indicated that many Republicans are worried by Moscow's ambitions with respect to the former Soviet republics, above all Ukraine and Georgia. "I don't believe a new Cold War will start, but I see Russia strengthening its positions in the region," the Senator said. Commenting on the situation in Transcaucasia after the August 2008 war, he said that notwithstanding the findings of the Tagliavini Commission on the causes of the conflict in South Ossetia, the American establishment still has a negative attitude to Russia.
McCain accused Russia of violating the ceasefire agreement signed during the war in South Ossetia, which was brokered by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "The Russians continue to occupy the territories in violation of the ceasefire agreement and to stage provocations. They broke international law in recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," he said.
In his interview with the French journalists the Republican Senator raised the topic of human rights violations in Russia, citing the death in pretrial detention of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer acting for Hermitage Capital Investment Fund. According to McCain, human rights should be high on the agenda of US policy with regard to Russia: "It is not about pursuing a tougher policy, but about protecting human rights, as we have always done." He did not rule out that criticism of Russia over human rights may be combined with interaction on other issues, for example, arms control: "We should negotiate with the Russians. We are negotiating a strategic offensive arms agreement."
For McCain, the course adopted by former President Ronald Reagan remains as a template for policy with regard to Russia. His firm course in the 1980s enabled him to wrest concessions from the USSR. The Senator recalled that it was Reagan who, in his opinion, had persuaded Mikhail Gorbachev not to obstruct the reunification of Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Senator McCain stressed that in dealing with practical issues, such as the situation around Iran, the West should continue to be oriented towards Vladimir Putin. "I have never thought that Medvedev's statement in New York on possible sanctions against Iran carries weight," he admitted.
Nikolai Surkov