Moscow - Reacting for the first time to criticism of an
anti-US speech on the day Barack Obama was elected president, Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev said he 'simply forgot' the US presidential
election was taking place.
'With every appreciation to the United States, I simply forgot the
American elections on November 5,' Interfax news agency quoted him
Sunday as saying as the financial summit of the G20 countries ended
in Washington.
Medvedev announced in a speech on the day of Obama's victory that
Russia was prepared to place short-range missiles in the territory of
Kaliningrad in response to US plans for a missile-defence shield in
Poland and the Czech Republic.
Russia's Baltic Sea port Kaliningrad is isolated from Russia
proper and is sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
Western leaders criticized Medvedev for making the confrontational
speech on the day when there was almost universal congratulation for
Obama.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the
speech sent 'the wrong signal at the wrong time.'
Medvedev was quoted Sunday as saying the speech had been planned
for a long time.
'Then I put it off many times as I was not satisfied with the
content,' he said in Washington.
He said that, fundamentally, he viewed relations with the US with
optimism.
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