MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti) - 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.
"No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation, or attempts to monopolize transportation," Cheney said.
Ukraine and Russia had a bitter and very public row over natural-gas prices earlier this year, and Moscow briefly cut supplies of natural gas in January, consequently disrupting supplies to other European countries. Russia also recently suspended imports of Georgian wine over what it said were health concerns. The sides in both disputes have traded allegations of politicizing the issues.
Commenting on the conference, Lavrov said, "There are forums that apparently are formed to unite countries against another [country]."
The conference discussed how NATO and the European Union could help democratic and security reforms as they continued to expand further east toward Russia, which Moscow sees as its historical sphere of influence.
Speaking at Westminster College in the southern U.S. town on March 5, 1946, Churchill, by that time no longer British prime minister, famously claimed: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe." He highlighted the Soviet sphere of influence, and called for new unity in Europe to counter the Soviet threat.
