MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax) - Complicated relations between Russia and the United States are unlikely to worsen with the appointment of Michael Pompeo as U.S. Secretary of State, Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee, said.
"It would not be entirely correct to think that with the arrival of the new secretary of state things will definitely get worse. First of all, the relations have already hit a new low; secondly, the personality of the secretary of state plays an important but not decisive role here. The U.S. foreign policy is now being 'censored' by a multitude of agencies, from Congress to the Attorney General," Kosachyov wrote on his Facebook page.
Pompeo's claims that the 'soft' policy on Russia would now be over and should be seen in the context of him having to "go through the Congress grindstone to be approved for the job, and the main criteria there now is an impeccable track record on Russia," he said. "Being merciless towards the Reich's enemies, like in the famous movie. The tougher the utterances, the greater the chances of confirmation," Kosachyov said.
It is doubtful that Pompeo "can sincerely believe that the U.S. policy on Russia has been 'soft' until now," the senator said.
On March 26, 1948 the U.S. Department of Commerce formally restricted the export of strategic material and high-tech equipment to the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries, he said. An export control coordinating committee was set up to decide which products can or cannot be sold to the USSR, the senator said.
"However, even with the departure of the USSR from the world stage the situation has not changed drastically. The notorious Jackson-Vanik amendment was not repealed until 2012, and even then was immediately replaced by the so-called Magnitsky Act," Kosachyov said.
"It was the U.S. which for a long time had been blocking Russia's accession to the WTO [World Trade Organization] so that our country would be unable to take advantage of its mechanisms to overcome the artificial U.S. restrictions on our companies' access to the U.S. market. Well, next there were the sanctions which one of these days escalated into a full-scale economic aggression," Kosachyov said.