The chairman of a key House panel is urging closer U.S. security cooperation with Russia ahead of next month’s Olympic games amid rising terrorist threats.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel on Europe, called on the Obama administration to overcome a “Cold War mentality” and share more information with the Kremlin. He said he’s planning a hearing on the issue shortly after Congress returns next week.
{mosads}“Whenever unarmed citizens are victims of terrorist attacks, we should stand in solidarity with their countries — especially with Russia,” Rohrabacher said in a statement. “Unfortunately, our own recent relations with Moscow have called into question what should be Washington’s automatic response.”
The remarks follow twin bombings in Volgograd, a main transit point to the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. A fan of Russia’s tough handling of Islamist militants, Rohrabacher last year visited the site of the 2004 terrorist attack in the Caucasus city of Beslan that left hundreds of schoolchildren dead and has said closer U.S.-Russian counter-terrorism cooperation could have prevented the Boston marathon bombing that killed three onlookers last year.
“Our security cooperation should be at a much higher level and much more extensive,” he said. “Whether it is 9/11 or the murders of Russian schoolchildren or attacks in Egypt, radical Islamic terrorists should know that the good people are standing together and will not cower when confronted with monstrous crimes against unarmed and innocent civilians.”
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