Russia accuses US of avoiding normal relations, "playing at lists"

Oct 26, 2011, 10:43 GMT

Moscow - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the US on Wednesday of avoiding normal diplomatic relations and 'playing at lists,' in relation to travel bans recently imposed by both countries against selected officials.

'We for our part also have concerns about certain acts of the US, but we do not play with lists - a tactic which for some reason Washington has become enamoured of recently,' Lavrov said.

'We ask questions directly,' Lavrov added, according to the Interfax news agency.

Speaking at a Moscow press conference, Lavrov called 'worrying' a growing conflict with Washington over the recently imposed travel bans.

He said the US had started the confrontation with a July entry ban for 11 Russian officials. The Kremlin on Sunday announced a retaliatory ban, without making public the names of the US officials blocked from entering Russia.

Direct dialogue, and not tit-for-tat travel bans, was the best way for the two countries to resolve their differences, Lavrov said.

'I am absolutely in favour of either side - if it has an issue it wants to discuss - using existing channels,' he said.

In July, the US State Department identified 11 Russian nationals who were possibly complicit in the alleged 2009 murder of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and barred them from entering the US.

The travel bans followed a 2010 request from US Senator Benjamin Cardin, who has alleged that Magnitsky was arrested, abused and possibly murdered for publicizing official Russian corruption involving some 230 million dollars of stolen government funds.

A senior adviser to President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday said the Kremlin considered America responsible for kidnapping, torture and murder during its military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; and for criminal detention of Russian nationals in the US.

Lavrov on Tuesday said US officials complicit in such acts could be banned from Russia in future.

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