All news

Russia-US cooperation needed to defeat terrorism — Kremlin spokesman

Fighting against terrorism "requires cooperation and we have been denied this cooperation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov Mikhail Metzel/TASS
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

NEW YORK, November 11. /TASS/. Neither the United States nor Russia can cope with the terrorist threat alone, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Friday.

"It is impossible to defeat terrorism by yourself," Peskov, who is currently in New York to attend the opening ceremony of the World Chess Championship, said. "It requires cooperation and we have been denied this cooperation. This is the absurdity of the situation."

As an example he cited the case of the Tsarnaev brothers who planted bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013. "Have the US security services listened to us, human lives could have been saved," he stressed.

Bilateral relations

No major changes are expected to occur in US politics in the nearest future due to considerable inertia, Peskov said. "One should not expect any immediate changes in Washington’s system of coordinates," he added. "There is great inertia. One should not expect drastic changes in Washington’s policy. They have a system of checks and balances," he noted.

"The current situation is absurd, when bilateral cooperation is practically frozen, and it was not Russia’s fault," the Kremlin spokesman said. Moreover, this occurred in those spheres of cooperation that are "vitally important for US as well," he added.

The Kremlin spokesman expressed hope that "experienced people that are part of the establishment" will come to the new US Administration. "However, this is the matter for the US President-elect," he noted.

It is inadmissible to dodge dialogue in relations between Russia and the United States, Peskov stressed. "Russian President Vladimir Putin said that those who never seek to evade dialogue despite the gaps in concrete approaches are more appealing to us," he said.

Minsk Agreements

More and more countries across the globe begin to see the situation in Ukraine in a more realistic light, Peskov continued. "The (countries) begin to see that Kiev is failing its liabilities under the Minsk agreements," Peskov noted. "Many representatives of different countries are not hiding their irritation."

The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising senior representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, signed a 13-point Package of Measures to fulfil the September 2014 Minsk agreements. The package was agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine.

The Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk starting from February 15 and subsequent withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the line of engagement. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.