Americas

Americas

U.S. diplomat plays down leaked call; Germany's Merkel angry

07 February 2014 23:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A top U.S. diplomat tried to play down the damage to Washington's diplomacy in Ukraine from a leaked telephone call, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel called an obscene remark about the EU "absolutely unacceptable," APA reports quoting Reuters

U.S. officials blamed Moscow for the Internet leak of recordings of a senior State Department official and the U.S. ambassador discussing a possible future government for Ukraine, where Washington and Brussels back anti-Kremlin demonstrators.

Western officials described the leaks as a throwback to the cloak-and-dagger tactics of the Cold War, apparently aimed as much at sowing discord among Western allies as at discrediting the opposition in Ukraine, a country of 46 million people on the verge of bankruptcy, torn between east and west.

Senior State Department official Victoria Nuland is heard using an expletive to tell the U.S. ambassador it would be better if a new Ukrainian government is backed by the United Nations than the EU.

"Fuck the EU," she says. U.S. officials have not denied the authenticity of the recording and said Nuland apologized to EU colleagues for the comment.

Angela Merkel - already furious with Washington for several months over reports that U.S. officials bugged her own phone - found Nuland's remarks "totally unacceptable", a spokeswoman for the German chancellor said.

Merkel also expressed support for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who heads the bloc's Ukraine policy.

In a separate leaked recording, an Ashton aide is overheard complaining about the United States for telling Ukrainian opposition members that Brussels was "soft" in its reluctance to impose measures such as sanctions to hurt the pro-Russian government.

Nuland, who met President Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev on Thursday before the Ukrainian leader flew off to meet President Vladimir Putin at the Olympics in Russia, described the bugging and leaks as "pretty impressive tradecraft" but said it would not hurt her ties with the Ukrainian opposition.

Other U.S. officials directly blamed Moscow, noting that the leaked recording, posted anonymously, was first highlighted in a tweet from a Russian official.

"Tapping phone calls and releasing carefully selected bits to support propaganda efforts is an age-old method by some type of regimes," tweeted Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

In Nuland's bugged call, apparently recorded about 12 days ago when Ukrainian opposition leaders were considering an offer from Yanukovich to join his cabinet, she suggested that one of three leading figures might accept a post but two others should stay out. In the end, all three rejected the offer.