Russia: Michael McFaul: U.S. wants to further relations with Russia, but "it takes two to tango"

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul gave his first interview to correspondents of Interfax Olga Golovanova and Kseniya Baygarova after the U.S. presidential elections‘ 2012 on vital bilateral issues in U.S.-Russian relations and regional agenda, such as Iran and Afghanistan.

Question: Mr. McFaul, you are an author of ‘reset’. Everybody knows a lot of people in Russia and sometimes in America are a little bit disappointed of ‘perezagruzka’. Do you share this view? Are you disappointed too and will new Obama‘s administration continue the policy of ‘reset’ in our relations?

Answer: Well, from our perspective ‘perezagruzka’ was always about engaging with the Russian government and Russian society to achieve our concrete national interests. We assumed that the Russian government would do the same with us and would never cooperate on an issue unless they thought that it was in their national interests as well. This is a concept that President Obama talks of as win-win outcomes. The only way one can realize win-win outcomes is to have an understanding of each others‘ interests, of each others‘ motivations. And the only way you can facilitate that understanding is to engage. Sometimes it is not well understood that it is not an end in itself. It is a means to these other outcomes. So President Obama - they are not here anymore, there is me playing football with Obama - we used to have photos in here of the various meetings he has had with President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin, now President Putin. They met last in Mexico, in Los Cabos. I was at that meeting. He is engaged much of his personal time into trying to foster this understanding, so that we could get the outcomes. He created with President Medvedev the bilateral presidential commission again to help increase connections, activities between our two governments. We think that the results have been very positive: the new START Treaty, cooperation on what we call the northern distribution network for supplies to our troops in Afghanistan; Russia is a key partner to us in that process. We think our cooperation on Iran and North Korea has been very robust at the UN Security Council. With respect to Iran both in negotiations but also on sanctions on Security Council [Resolution] #1929. Most recently - I don‘t want to go into everything - the WTO accession for Russia. We worked very closely with the Russian government to make that happen. Concrete outcomes. I think it is fair to say when I hear the critics that we‘ve done less big things in this last year, in 2012, so that the momentum has slowed down. I would say that there are two reasons for that. One is that we‘ve got a lot done, so the things that are left are harder issues. So we‘ve got these other things done. Now on to these other issues. Two, I would say that both your government was focused on domestic issues and election issues here. And so was my president:2012 was an election year. Therefore the president did not devote as much time to foreign policy issues. But now we have a new moment, we‘ll soon have a new administration, and we‘ll now have a better understanding of what can be done together from this kind of strategy or theory that we have in our relationship.

For the complete interview click here: Michael McFaul: U.S. wants to further relations with Russia, but "it takes two to tango" - Interview - Interfax.com