Yesterday, the Russians marked the occasion of the U.S. Secretary of State's visit to Moscow by announcing that it would assist Iran in the completion of its nuclear reactor in Bushehr in the next few months. Then today, Russia's Prime Minister Putin spent six minutes chastising the U.S. for complaints spanning the last 26 years. From Jake Tapper at ABC News:
ABC's Alexander Marquardt reports: When reporters traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Moscow were informed that a last-minute meeting with Russia's Prime Minister Valdimir Putin had been added to the schedule, they were told they would only get to see a few seconds of handshakes before being ushered out.Secretary of State Clinton's response to the obvious double slap from Russia: predictable silence.
Instead, with cameras rolling, they watched Putin spend six minutes rattling off a number of complaints he has with the United States.
Trade with the US has slowed during the financial crisis, he complained, Russian companies have been slapped with US sanctions and Russia is having trouble joining the World Trade Organization.
He also singled out the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, as he has in the past, as evidence that the US is not fully encouraging business with Russia. (The amendment restricts trade with countries that limit emigration, as the USSR did with Jews.)
"If we continue to work together, we can move beyond the problems to greater opportunities," Clinton replied, according to the Washington Post, after emphasizing some of the accomplishments the two countries had recently achieved. The report added that Clinton was “unfazed by the blunt lecture.”
Reporters were surprised at the length of Putin’s list of issues and the fact that he did it in front of the Russian and American press corps, a pool reporter noted.
Ha Ha Ha... I'll bet Hillary was searching for the "Reset Button", when she was getting her butt chewed out...
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