Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that U.S. President Donald Trump realizes the benefits of good relations with Russia, but certain forces in the United States do not share this point of view.
"As far as [U.S.] relations with Russia are concerned, we have no reasons to doubt that President Donald Trump sincerely realizes benefits of good Russian-U.S. relations for Americans, for American businesses, for the U.S. in general and for the global situation," the Russian Foreign Minister said, adding that such relations "should contain no element of favoritism to anyone" and "be based on the balance of interests, pragmatism and mutual benefits."
"We are aware that not everyone in the U.S. shares our point of view," he noted. According to Lavrov, certain forces are trying to slow down the normalization of our relations by all means, to impose more and more sanctions on Russia.
The Russian top diplomat expressed confidence that the sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream pipelines, included into the new military budget of the United States, will not stop those projects.
"At the moment the Congress is literally consumed by the desire to do everything within its powers to destroy our relations. The cause, started by the administration of Barack Obama, still lives on. But we are used to this kind of attacks, we know how to respond to them," TASS cited him as saying.
Lavrov also noted that Trump has received Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to visit festivities to mark the 75th anniversary of victory over the Nazi Germany in Moscow next year and is now considering this proposal.
"President Trump is now considering it. We hope that if there will be an opportunity of this kind, then, naturally, there can be a full-format bilateral conversation," the Russian FM concluded.
