Obama: The U.S. is ready to work closely with President Putin

U.S. President Barack Obama called Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin yesterday and congratulated him on his victory in the presidential elections. According to the Assistant Foreign Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yuri Ushakov, "the telephone conversation was informal, very informative and lasted about 20 minutes."

Many media outlets have expressed bewilderment at the fact that Obama had not yet congratulated Putin on his election. White House spokesman Jay Carney at the last briefing explained this fact was due to overloaded schedules of both politicians and urged not to look for other causes.

President Obama and President-elect Putin in their telephone conversation expressed their readiness to conduct a Russian-US summit in the near future, and to maintain contacts with each other, RIA Novosti reports.

The U.S. president expressed his hope that "positive developments in bilateral relations, emerging in recent years, will be consolidated," and his willingness "to work closely with President-elect Vladimir Putin," Ushakov, who has worked for nearly 10 years as Russia's ambassador to Washington, says.

Putin thanked Obama for his congratulations and wished him success in the election campaign currently unfolding in the United States.

The two leaders noted that during the election campaigns in both countries many critically acute remarks were pronounced with respect to each other, but it was done in the heat of the election campaign and should not exert any influence on the progressive development of Russian-American cooperation, Ushakov says.

According to him, Obama has expressed interest in working with the Russian President-elect on bilateral contacts, including in the economic sphere, as well as on the international agenda. The head of the U.S. administration said that, before a personal meeting between the two presidents, it is necessary to provide contacts at the level of aides and experts to better prepare this meeting.

Vladimir Putin in his telephone conversation with Barack Obama stressed the importance of cooperation between the two countries to ensure security in the world, especially given the current turbulent situation.

Putin also noted significant progress in bilateral relations made in recent years, in particular the conclusion of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms and the successful negotiations on Russia's accession to the WTO.

However, the president-elect of the Russian Federation pointed to the divergence of positions on the negotiations on missile defense of Moscow and Washington. He also noted that the development of economic relations is inferior to that of political relations and called for more intensive development of the latter.

According to Ushakov, the Russian president-elect believes that trade and economic relations between the two countries have great potential, and their strengthening “will allow the creation of a big network safeguarding bilateral political relations from market fluctuations."

According to him, in a conversation Putin said that there is every reason for a qualitative leap in bilateral relations.

As "VK" earlier reported, the presidential elections in Russia took place on March 4. Last Wednesday, the Central Electoral Commission of the Russian Federation officially proclaimed Putin the elected President. According to official statistics, the acting prime minister won 63.6% of the vote.