Interview with Daniel Yergin

Medvedev’s remarks at the meeting of the US Council on Foreign Relations can help establish foundation for dialogue with new US administration, says Daniel Yergin from Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Pulitzer Prize winner.

“The questions that were asked here today are the questions that are on everybody’s mind, so it’s very important to have them on the table at this time, a transition from one administration to another in the US, and I think President Medvedev very calmly and very steadily took on all the questions and dealt with them in a very measured tone. With his remarks this afternoon he established the foundation for the dialogue with a new administration, and that’s a key thing if you look into the future”.

“I think that the basis between President Obama and President Medvedev is very strong because they are generationally the same; also it’s striking that they both have this very same measured calm approach to issues. And I think they both will be thinking not of only of where we are today, not only about the problems of today, but really about building a kind of relationship we need before our two countries over the next four-eight years, we have to get started, and I think with these two new presidents we have the basis to get started”.