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By passing Magnitsky Act US was guided by America No1 style: Lavrov

“If the American authorities had wanted to punish some Russians banning them from entering their territory, this could have been done without pomp,” the foreign minister said

VLADIVOSTOK, February 10 (Itar-Tass) – The passing of Magnitsky Act was caused by the US desire to be guided by the America Number One old style, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in the “Sunday Night with Sergei Solovyov” program on Rossiya television on Sunday.

According to Lavrov, the Magnitsky Act emerged “from absolutely nowhere”. “If the American authorities had wanted to punish some Russians banning them from entering their territory, this could have been done without pomp,” the foreign minister said.

“In accordance with international law, every government and state has the right to ban entry to anyone without explaining the reasons. If you want to arrest accounts and prove their illegal origin this is also admitted by international law,” he added.

“The Magnitsky Act was demonstrative,” be believes. “I am deeply convinced that it was plotted so that we not think ‘life is a picnic’ after the abolition of the Jackson-Vanik amendment,” he said. “Americans could not but abolish it, as leaving it in place after our WTO accession would deprive them of advantages that other members of the World Trade Organization were acquiring in trade with Russia,” the foreign minister said. “And they did not feel like abolishing it just because, ‘for nothing’,” he added.

“This was the desire of Congressmen (as the decision was initiated by the Congress) to be guided by the old style – America Number One, America ‘is at the driver’s seat,’ while all the others will be doing what we tell them to,” the top diplomat continued. “But the very form in which this attitude was demonstrated towards the Russian Federation shows that apart from ‘giving vent to their bile’ Americans have no other ways to ‘prove’ that they are the only ones in the world who can have it their own way,” he stressed.

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