Diplomat: US statements on Syria dictated by pre-election hysteria

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/. Statements on relations with Russia, including on cooperation in Syria, that are coming from Washington are dictated by considerations of the ongoing election race, Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokesperson said on Wednesday in an interview with Vesti FM radio.

"They are amid a pre-election hysteria now," she said. "I'd like to stay within the limits of the diplomatic language but there's full-blown hysteria there. Very many political scientists say this is the dirtiest campaign there, as the levels of discussion and the agenda as such are disastrously low."

In the light of it, Zakharova has called for giving a less serious treatment to the utterances that come out of Washington.

"They said at first they were breaking off and abandoning something, that they'd run out of whatever it might be and had suspended it yet another time," Zakharova said.

"Then a day passes and suddenly I read they've cancelled contacts on a bilateral basis but, generally speaking, they will continue making efforts in multilateral formats. And after a few more hours I hear a completery different version, which says they they haven't cancelled contacts but rather have suspended them and if Russia jumps over the bonfire once again, they will do this and that."

"And that's why I say, just don't listen to them," she said. "They're going through a difficult moment, namely, the election."

Zakharova believes various political forces in the US raise the Russian theme to gain advantages in political struggle.

"All of this campaigning is about the Russian bear," she said. "It's about how the Russian bear hybernates in wintertime, how he eats, how he hacks someone's servers, as if there are no other problems to discuss."