US, Russia try brave face despite tattered ties

The United States and Russia put a brave face Friday on deteriorating relations, pledging to work together on shared interests even as they nursed frustration over deep differences on issues like missile defense, Syria and the case of NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
 
Opening high-level talks just two days after the White House cancelled a planned summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State John Kerry allowed that U.S.-Russia ties had been complicated by "the occasional collision" and "challenging moments."
 
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also acknowledged the fractious state of relations, but called on both sides to act like "grown-ups."
 
Both men maintained that U.S-Russian cooperation on even limited areas of shared concerns is important.
 
"The relationship between the United States and Russia is needless to say a very important relationship and it is marked by both shared interests and, at times, colliding and conflicting interests and, I think we are all very clear-eyed about that," Kerry said as he and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel welcomed Lavrov and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to the talks at the State Department.
 
Noting that he and Lavrov are both former ice hockey players, Kerry said that they understood "that diplomacy, like hockey, can sometimes result in the occasional collision, so we're candid, very candid, about the areas in which we agree but also the areas in which we disagree."
 
"It's no secret that we have experienced some challenging moments and obviously not just over the Snowden case," he said. "We will discuss these differences today, for certain, but this meeting remains important above and beyond the collisions and moments of disagreement."
 
Russia has minced no words in expressing its disappointment that Obama cancelled the summit and Lavrov made it clear that Moscow had been prepared to sign agreements on trade and nuclear research and security had it gone ahead.
 
"At least we in Russia were prepared to table our proposals to the two presidents," Lavrov said.
 
"Of course, we have disagreements. We'll continue discussing matters on which we disagree calmly and candidly," he said. "We need to work as grown-ups. And this is what we do. And we hope that this will be reciprocal."
 
Russia's decision last week to grant temporary asylum to Snowden prompted the cancellation of the summit, but relations between Washington and Moscow had already been on a slide.
 
The White House said there was no sign that progress could be made on significant issues at the summit.
 
 "Summits of leaders are, tend to be designed around making progress on significant issues," White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday. "And we had not seen that progress sufficiently on a range of issues to merit a summit."
 
U.S.-Russia discord had been simmering since Putin regained the Russian presidency more than a year ago.
 

AP