Lavrov: Washington chose wrong time for publishing Magnitsky list

If the United States publishes "the Magnitsky list", Russia will respond, and the American partners know this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said when he answered questions of Russian reporters after the talks with his Swiss counterpart, head of the federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs Didier Burkhalter. Lavrov did not say when Moscow would respond, adding that he had no information so far about time when Washington planned to publish its list. The Russian foreign minister noted that Washington chose wrong time. The U.S. president's national security advisor Tom Donilon will arrive in Moscow on Monday to hand over a message from President Obama with detailed ideas of prospects for Russian-American cooperation, the minister noted. An informed source told Itar-Tass earlier that parity would be observed in the Russian response to the Magnitsky list - the number of names will not differ considerably. "The rules of parity will be observed in our response," he said. “We will not publish anything that will significantly differ for the number from the list to be published by Americans.”