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Romney’s remarks about RF not shared by US politicians, public-Kosachev

But Romney missed “the target when speaking about a potential threat coming from Russia”, he added
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, April 2 (Itar-Tass) —— U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s remarks about Russia as an enemy of America are not shared either by the political elite of the general public in the United States, Head of the Federal Agency for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation Konstantin Kosachev said.

According to Kosachev, the world did not learn anything new from the private conversation between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama in Seoul the details of which were leaked to the press, “except for the encouraging fact that the two leaders have a normal and trusting relationship”.

However this fact inspired Romney “to play an unexpected trump card and slam Obama in a style that we all very well know from our own life – ‘we have been betrayed and sold’. A potential U.S. president also said that Russia, not Iran or North Korea as always before, is the geopolitical enemy number one for the United States,” Kosachev said on Monday, April 2.

But Romney missed “the target when speaking about a potential threat coming from Russia”, he added.

Kosachev cited U.S. Vice President Josef Biden as saying that Romney’s remarks expose his incompetence in foreign policy and that he was acting as if the Cold War is still continuing.

“He acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on, Russia is still our major adversary. I don’t know where he has been,” Biden said about Romney in a Sunday interview on the CBS current affairs program “Face the Nation.”

Microphones on March 26 recorded Obama asking Medvedev to let Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin know that he needed to “give me space” to deal with objections to the U.S. missile-defense plan.

“This is my last election, and after my election I have more flexibility,” Obama told Medvedev.

“I understand,” Medvedev replied in English, adding that he would “transmit this information to Vladimir.”

In his interview with CBS, Biden said that Obama “just stated the obvious” and that “it’s going to be difficult” to work with Congress on further reductions of the U.S. nuclear arsenal between now and the November elections.

Romney called the president’s words “alarming and troubling.”

Kosachev also cited The New York Times as describing Romney’s remarks either shocking unawareness about international affairs or malicious politicking.

“American mass media have published some interesting information. This year only 2 percent called Russia the arch enemy of America. Last year, six in ten people polled by CNN said Russia was a friendly or allied country. According to a Gallup poll, 50 percent think positively about Russia,” Kosachev said.