Top US diplomat sorry for derogatory EU remark
KYIV: A top US 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.”
Senior State Department official Victoria Nuland is heard using an expletive to tell the US ambassador it would be better if a new Ukrainian government is backed by the United Nations than the EU. “F*** the EU,” she says.
US officials blamed Moscow for the Internet leak of recordings of a senior State Department official and the US 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.
US officials have not denied the authenticity of the recording and said Nuland apologised to EU colleagues for the comment. Angela Merkel – already furious with Washington for several months over reports that US 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 Kyiv onThursday, 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.
Reuters