Russia's foreign minister Friday played down media speculation that a speech by the American vice president was a modern-day version of Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech. An article in leading business daily Kommersant said Dick Cheney's speech Thursday at a regional summit in Lithuania, in which he voiced harsh criticism of Russia, was similar to Churchill's speech in Fulton, Missouri, which many in Russia see as heralding the start of the Cold War. "I would rather not compare these politicians or give this sort of ratings," Sergei Lavrov said.
Addressing an international conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, called "Common Visions for the Common Neighborhood" and attended by heads of states from the Baltic and Black Sea regions and NATO and EU representatives, Cheney said Russia had been backsliding on democracy and using its vast energy resources to blackmail its neighbors. Commenting on the conference, Lavrov said, "There are forums that apparently are formed to unite countries against another [country]."
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