Kremlin:

US, Russia Cannot Force Each Other to Change Political Course by Sanctions

TEHRAN (defapress)- Washington cannot force Moscow to change its policy and Russia does not have tools either to influence the US political course, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty weekly newspaper published on Tuesday.

News ID: 75001

Date: 15 January 2019 - 15:15

"Despite the fact that the United States is the world’s largest economy, it does not have tools that could force Russia to abandon its sovereign policy," Peskov said commenting on Washington’s sanctions, TASS reported.

"The Americans failed to fulfill this task although they had used an array of various restrictions. The sanctions have not changed anything," Peskov stressed.

According to the presidential spokesman, Russia "does not either have any levers capable of forcing the Americans to abandon their line".

For more than 40 years, Russia has been living under different restrictions, including the US sanctions, Peskov noted. Among them, he named the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a set of Cold War restrictions on trade with Russia. This amendment was scrapped in 2012 and replaced by the US sanctions law called the Magnitsky Act, aimed at punishing Russian officials allegedly responsible for the death lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Russian Foreign Ministry's Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also told Zvezda TV channel on Monday that the United States has not handled well its role as an international arbiter and failed at ensuring global security.

"I think that many people understand how absolutely destructive this dialogue with Russia is, how the US is driving itself in the corner on several international issues," Zakharova said.

"In reality, Washington shows only one thing with its actions - that it failed as an international policeman, as an international arbiter, in all senses. This is bad for everybody," she added.

Western countries wanted the US to assume to role of a guarantor of international security, Zakharova explained.

"What we are witnessing represents a complete failure of those plans," she concluded.

Message end/