Russia calls on the United States to stick to observing international law instead of using PR stunts in foreign affairs, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th March, 2019) Russia calls on the United States to stick to observing international law instead of using PR stunts in foreign affairs, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.This month marks the 10th anniversary since 'the Russian reset,' an attempt by then US President Barack Obama's administration to achieve rapprochement with Moscow in 2009. The thaw in relations did not last long and was interrupted by disagreements on the NATO-led coalition intervention in Libya in 2011 and later by the Ukrainian crisis.
"In general, the last weeks have shown that world problems cannot be solved by placing flags and massive information campaigns. Therefore, the issue here is not the next PR campaign, beautiful, with buttons, with inscriptions, but the return of the United States to observing the legal framework," Zakharova said at a briefing.
The Russian reset was launched in March of 2009, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-US State Secretary Hillary Clinton met in the Swiss town of Geneva. At the meeting, Clinton presented a red button as a symbol of resetting historically troubled relations. However, the Russian word for reset - "perezagruzka" - was misspelled and instead read "peregruzka," which in English stands for "overload." Despite the mistake on the US behalf, the top diplomats pushed the button, hoping that the symbolic act would lead to long desired thaw in Russian-US ties.
