WASHINGTON, January 12. /Offset. TASS Dmitry Kirsanov/. Nominated elected American President Donald trump for the post of Secretary of defense James Mattis is experiencing only modest hope of overcoming Washington and Moscow, the current tensions and pursue constructive cooperation. He said this, speaking at the hearings devoted to the consideration, in Committee on Armed forces (AF) of the Senate of the U.S. Congress.
an Extremely modest expectations
“I certainly agree with the President-elect (USA), again stating that he wants to have connectivity (with Russia). Even in our worst years of the cold war, we actually interacted, for example, with the Soviet Union. But I have extremely modest expectations about areas of cooperation with Mr. Putin”, – said the candidate for the position of Pentagon chief. Republican trump, whose inauguration will take place on 20 January, has repeatedly advocated the normalization of Russian-American relations.
At the same time, the retired General Mattis declined to specify whether it supports the idea of further tightening of the unilateral American sanctions against Russia. He suggested to wait for the completion of the new U.S. administration, and the formulation of its position on this matter. At the same time, the retired General Mattis mentioned in this context on the development of a “strategy” designed to confront Russia.
“I would like to meet with a new team, dealing with issues of national security, to develop a strategy to confront Russia for what it did,” said Mattis, who in 2013 resigned from active military service, leaving the post of head of the Central command (CENTCOM) of the armed forces of the United States.
Eyes on the White house
These statements of Mattis essentially was a repetition of his written answers to the questions of the Senate Committee on armed services, released before the hearing. As they argued Mattis, “Russia decided to become a strategic competitor of the United States.” “However, we cooperated with Russia, even in the darkest days of the cold war, and I support the desire of the elected President (USA) now to cooperate with Russia”, – said the former commander.
From his point of view, “cooperation should be a means to achieve national goals.” “We must define these goals and look for areas of potential cooperation with Russia”, – noted ex-the head of CENTCOM.
Resist the behavior of Russia
at the same time Mattis in the written responses expressed the view that Washington, when he will reveal “other areas” where the United States can not cooperate with Moscow, will have “to confront the behavior of Russia, and to defend themselves if Russia decides to act in defiance of our (us) interests”. “NATO support will be fundamental to respond to these challenges, and we need an integrated strategy that strengthens the Alliance and ensures that the Department of defense (USA) is ready to reflect both traditional and emerging threats,” – said Mattis.
Attacks McCain
meanwhile, even the words of Mattis displeasure of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on armed services John McCain (Republican, Arizona) who hold anti-Russian views. “Each of our three (American) presidents were enormous expectations building partnerships with the Russian government, (but) every (such) attempt failed, (and) not for lack of conscientious effort on the part of the United States, but because of the stubborn fact that we (in Washington) must finally admit. Putin wants to be our enemy. We need him as an enemy,” said the legislator.
As he predicted, the Russian leader “will never become a partner of” United States, “including the fight against ISIL” a terrorist group “Islamic state” (IG, is prohibited in Russia). He called on trump and his entourage “realistic to move forward on this basis” in relations with Russia.
for its part, his colleague Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) agreed to the fact that essentially proposed to introduce sanctions against Russia for alleged transgressions that she “probably will do in the future.”
No comments:
Post a Comment