John Kerry Fails to Thaw Cooling US-Russia Relations

VADUZ, Liechtenstein, February 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Hopes that US President Barack Obama's appointment of John Kerry as US Secretary of State would spark closer ties with Russia are quickly fading, according to World Review author Professor Stefan Hedlund, Uppsala University, Sweden.

Outwardly, Russia appears to approve of Kerry's recent appointment. However, as Professor Hedlund explains, this was little more than political niceties.

"This was demonstrated by the six days it took Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to reply to a phone call from Mr Kerry following North Korea's underground nuclear test on February 11, 2013," he says.

"Likewise, at one point last year Mr Kerry's predecessor Hillary Clinton had trouble getting hold of Mr Lavrov to discuss Syria."

US-Russia relations have slipped, and are now marked by substantial disagreements and a rapid deterioration in trust.

The prospects for a much-needed renewal of cooperation between Russia and the US in solving the multiple problems that mark international relations today do not look good.

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About the author

World Review author Stefan Hedlund is Professor and Research Director at the Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, at Uppsala University, Sweden. He trained as an economist and has specialised in Russian affairs since the final days of Leonid Brezhnev in the early 1980s. He has published extensively on matters ranging from the Soviet system to post-Soviet transition, and institutional dimensions of the interaction between state and market in a modern economy. He has published more than 20 books, some 200 journal and magazine articles and well over 300 reviews and op-ed pieces.

About World Review

World Review (http://www.worldreview.info) is a free to access website that offers analytical reports provided by a network of leading global experts in geopolitics, economics, defence, security and energy.

World Review has been developed by Geopolitical Information Service AG, which is based in Liechtenstein and is well known for its independent outlook. The website was founded by H.S.H Prince Michael of Liechtenstein. Prince Michael is a widely recognised entrepreneur and expert in the field of global geopolitics and economics, and is the President of the European Centre of Austrian Economics Foundation (ECAEF), a liberal think-tank based in Liechtenstein.

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