The foreign policy strategy, signed by Medvedev on Saturday but released Tuesday to coincide with a keynote speech to ambassadors, says the prime minister will be allowed for the first time to implement foreign policy measures, a right previously assumed to be monopolized by the president, the Moscow Times reports. Dmitry Trenin, political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center says to the newspaper that “the vague and somewhat incomprehensible expectations that there might be some kind of liberalization in foreign policy” under Medvedev have proven unfounded. Several analysts earlier this year indicated that PM Putin looked set to strengthen his role in foreign policies. Among the signals of the shift was the calling home of Ambassador to the USA Yuri Ushakov and his appointment as foreign policy adviser of Putin.
