Let Us Not Now Commemorate The End Of The European Second World War By Commencing The Beginning Of The Second European Cold War

MOSCOW (AP) -- "A Russian newspaper said Friday that Vice President Dick Cheney's harsh criticism of Moscow's human rights record signaled the start of a new Cold War.

The Kommersant business daily compared Cheney's speech Thursday in neighboring Lithuania to Winston Churchill's famous ''Iron Curtain'' speech in Fulton, Mo., saying in that it ''marked the beginning of a second Cold War.''

Churchill coined the ''Iron Curtain'' expression in his 1946 speech that warned of Soviet expansion.

Asked to comment on the comparison, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov refrained from criticizing Cheney. But he condemned Thursday's conference in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, which brought together pro-Western Eastern European leaders.

''There are forums that create an impression ... that they are convened ... for the sake of uniting against someone,'' Lavrov said.

The government-run newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta belittled the venue as a gathering of nine small nations trying to rival the Group of Eight.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta said the countries were trying to establish themselves not by ''defending normal relations with our country, but rather through efforts to exaggerate and use the contradictions existing between Moscow and some of its partners in the West.''

Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Cheney's speech ''looks like a provocation and interference in Russia's internal affairs in terms of its content, form and place.''

Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin expressed annoyance that Russia had not been invited to the conference of former Soviet republics and allies."...

Associated Press "Russian Media Warn of New Cold War" New York Times, May 5, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-US.html
















Photo credit: Library of Congress. Washington, D.C.

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