Russia-US relations at crossroads, Moscow ready for cooperation - Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/. Relations between Moscow and Washington have turned out to be at a crossroads, Russia is ready for cooperation, but it will be filled with meaningful content step by step, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at a round-table discussion in the State Duma (lower house of parliament) dedicated to Russian-US relations. "Relations with the US today are at a crossroads in many respects," he said. "Work in specific areas will be filled with meaningful content gradually as dialogue with the new administration is built." "We would like to believe that changes in Washington will create a window of opportunity for rectifying the situation in the dialogue between our two countries." Ryabkov emphasized that Russia is "open to constructive cooperation with the United States." "However, it should be built in keeping with the spirit of balance of interests, without attempting to blackmail or impose one’s will," he noted. "Of course, we have closely followed (US President) Donald Trump’s remarks about Russia and his Twitter posts. We view his public statements on the need to iron out relations between our countries positively." He recalled that by declaring the policy of containing Russia, the previous US administration "drastically restricted the dialogue in many areas." "The current situation in relations between Russia and the US, as we all know, leaves a lot to be desired," he said. "It will be no exaggeration to say that our relations are at their lowest point since the Cold War era." "Under the guise of the Russian aggression propaganda thesis, the US started to beef up NATO’s military presence close to our borders and take other destabilizing steps," he said. "To date, 172 Russian nationals and 350 legal entities are on the US blacklists." Read more