President Obama wishes to renew relations with Russia, thanks to his talks with current Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev. The President, in discussion with Patrushev, who is on a visit to the United States, recently reiterated his desire to strengthen relations with the country that they were at odds during the Cold War for several decades.
Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden revealed this in a statement, in saying, “The President reaffirmed his desire to strengthen the bilateral relationship, including US-Russian economic ties.”
Relations between the country has been strained since the 2011 Parliament elections, which was declared by an NGO named as National Endowment for Democracy to have been conducted fraudulently, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, concluded that it was neither fair nor free.
What made matters worse was the signing of the Magnitsky Act that banned Russians who were guilty of abuse by NGOs such as the Human Rights Watch from either entering the United States or even holding financial assets in the country.
The Russians soon retaliated by signing a law which banned Americans from adopting children from Russia especially after a Russian child died in Texas. After this, they also came up with a Magnitsky Act of their own that banned Americans who worked at Guantanamo Bay and other places from entering Russia.
There is also disagreement over the proposed construction of a NATO missile defense system in Poland, and which is only a few miles away from Kaliningrad.
Obama will meet with Putin in Ireland at the G-8 summit in June this year while also meeting with him in the United States in the fall.