Quick-fire quips at the Russian president’s meeting with the Turkish PM as Putin hinted at NSA capabilities to tap any phone call, even those made by the Ukrainian leader – he also explained why Erdogan couldn’t take away an Arctic 30 activist with him. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met for a joint press conference to sign several key trade agreements in St Petersburg on Friday. After the formal intro, the Q&A developed into something unexpected. “The Ukrainian President allegedly said that Kiev cannot sign an agreement with the EU because Russia was blackmailing Ukraine… can you comment?” a Russian journalist from Interfax asked Putin. The reporter was referring to alleged accusations of blackmail made by Kiev during a phone conversation between Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his Lithuanian counterpart, Dalia Grybauskaite. The Lithuanian presidential aide, Jovita Neliupšienė, earlier on Friday claimed that Moscow had warned Kiev to cancel the EU integration agreement. Putin said he had no information about the alleged accusations: “I do not know what the president of Ukraine and the president of Lithuania were talking about. Maybe we can ask our American friends and they can tell us. But they haven’t said anything to us yet, he joked in a clear reference to the scandal with the US National Security Agency’s surveillance program and their tapping of EU leaders’ phones. rt/news/putin-nsa-surveillance-joke-172/
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 17:44:22 +0000