U.S. Hopes Russian Aid in Inquiry on Boston Bombings Signals Future Collaboration
Source: NYT
Despite years of differences on how to approach the terrorist threat, Obama administration officials said Monday that the American authorities investigating the Boston Marathon bombings were working effectively with their Russian counterparts and that they hoped the experience would usher in a new era of cooperation on counterterrorism.
Since the bombings three weeks ago, Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, and President Obama have spoken twice on the phone and pledged deeper cooperation. In a striking sign of collaboration on the investigation, Russian intelligence officials have taken the extraordinary step of sharing secret transcripts of a phone call they intercepted in which they learned that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had extremist beliefs, according to United States law enforcement officials.
“On the logistics and communications to facilitate what the F.B.I. is doing, we have seen a very cooperative Russian government, because they understand we have a common interest in getting the full details in this investigation,” said a senior United States official. Like other officials, he would not speak on the record about the continuing criminal investigation.
Relations between the countries have been strained over the sharply differing American and Russian views on Syria, whose embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, has enjoyed support from Moscow. Just days before the marathon bombings, the Obama administration banned two dozen Russian officials from traveling to the United States and froze any assets they had in the United States in response to perceived human rights violations, notably the treatment of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer whose death in prison has been widely denounced in both countries.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/us/politics/us-says-russia-is-aiding-inquiry-into-boston-attacks.html
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