THE US GOVERNMENT is trying to defuse a potential row with its European allies after the leak of an embarrassing phone call in which a top US diplomat cursed the EU response to the Ukraine crisis.
The leak of the bugged conversation came as Ukraine’s embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, flew to Sochi, Russia late last night for crisis talks with Russian counterpart and ally Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics.
Washington and Brussels have engaged in a diplomatic standoff with Kiev and Moscow over mass pro-EU protests that erupted in Ukraine when Yanukovych in November rejected a pact with the EU under Russian pressure.
But the leaked phone call appears to reveal US frustration with the EU over handling Ukraine, which is torn between leaning to the European Union and its past master Russia.
Washington’s new top diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, has apologised to EU counterparts after she was caught cursing the European response to the crisis in Kiev.
(Youtube: datboi5000)
“F**k the EU,” Nuland allegedly says, in what appeared to be a recent phone call with US ambassador to Kiev, Geoff Pyatt, which was somehow intercepted and uploaded onto YouTube. The original video was accompanied by Russian captions.
US officials, while not denying such a conversation took place, refused to go into details, and pointed the finger at Russia for allegedly bugging the diplomats’ phones.
“Let me convey that she has been in contact with her EU counterparts, and of course has apologised,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
While Psaki said she had no independent details of how the conversation was captured and uploaded onto the social networking site, she added: “Certainly we think this is a new low in Russian tradecraft.”
Klitschko offer
Nuland, who took over late last year as assistant secretary for European affairs, and Pyatt appear to discuss Yanukovych’s offer last month to make opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk the new prime minister and Vitaly Klitschko deputy prime minister. Both men turned the offer down.
Nuland, who in December went down to Independence Square in Kiev in a show of support for the demonstrators, adds she has also been told that the UN chief Ban Ki-moon is about to appoint a former Dutch ambassador to Kiev, Robert Serry, as his representative to Ukraine.
“That would be great I think to help glue this thing and have the UN glue it and you know, f**k the EU,” she says.
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