The United States was seeking clarification from Moscow about its decision to terminate an agreement between Russia and the US on law-enforcement cooperation and narcotics
control, the State Department said Wednesday.
The Russian government announced the decision on its website, saying the decade-old agreement "does not address current realities and has exhausted its potential."
Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading Moscow-based foreign policy journal, said the infrastructure of relations - created largely in the 1990s - "no longer corresponds with present realities."
"All agreements based on the notion of 'a strong, rich America with a poor, weak Russia' must go," Lukyanov was quoted by the Christian Science Monitor as saying. "The idea is that if we relate
with the US in future, it must be as equals."
The nixing of the law-enforcement agreement is the latest casualty in a series of diplomatic actions indicating the so-called reset in relations initiated by US President Barack Obama was faltering.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the agreement involved training Russians in the areas of human trafficking, narcotics interdiction and implementation of a mutual
legal-assistance treaty between Russia and the US, and on the implementation of their own new criminal procedures code.
"It's obviously a Russian decision if they don't feel they need that help anymore," Nuland said. "From our perspective, this is also self-defeating."
She said Washington regretted the decision because the agreement had resulted in "very fruitful cooperation" with Russia in counter-corruption efforts, preventing human trafficking, counter-narcotics and strengthening mutual legal assistance.
Russia and and the US have a mutual legal-assistance treaty, and other drug-enforcement cooperation remains in force, so Washington was seeking clarification on Russia's latest move, Nuland said.
Relations with Russia are certain to be a challenge for incoming secretary of state John Kerry, who will be sworn in Friday.
Last week, the US withdrew from a group designed to foster the development of civil society in Russia, on the same day that the Duma passed a law banning the promotion of homosexuality in Russia.
The civil society working group was one of 20 groups established in 2009 by Obama and Dmitri Medvedev at a time when the US pushed to repair relations with Russia by embarking on an effort Obama called the reset.
In September, Russia asked the US Agency for International Development to leave the country, and Moscow in December banned US citizens from adopting children born in Russia.