Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said US representatives at the Feb. 18 meeting in Riyadh expressed their desire to normalize relations with Russia.
Speaking to US bloggers in Moscow, Lavrov said the American delegation also stressed the need to prevent conflicts from escalating into confrontation, especially military conflict.
Dismissing claims that Russia is distancing itself from the East while improving US ties, Lavrov called them an “illusion,” linking changes in Russian-US relations to the new administration, describing its course as a “return to normality.”
Lavrov contrasted Republicans and Democrats, arguing that the latter aggressively impose the “LGBT agenda,” which, in his view, pushed many voters toward Donald Trump. He noted that even Trump was unprepared for his first term in office but is now “fully ready.”
At the Riyadh meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials emphasized that Trump’s foreign policy would prioritize American national interests “absolutely and without discussion.” However, they acknowledged that other countries, including Russia, have their own interests, the minister said.
The US and Russia will never have fully aligned interests, but when they do, responsible politicians should turn them into practical, mutually beneficial projects, Lavrov said, adding that Russia shares this approach.
LAVROV ABOUT GAZA, IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL, SYRIA
Asked about the situation in Palestine, Lavrov said he had seen reports suggesting that Israel plans to annex the West Bank by concentrating Palestinians into designated municipalities rather than expelling them.
He stressed that “municipalities” were not “camps,” hinting unsettling parallels to Nazi Germany, where Jews were confined to specific areas and barred from living elsewhere, and now their plans on Palestinians are similar to that experience.
Lavrov said that while Palestine’s 1967 borders differ significantly from the original 1948 borders set under the UN Partition Plan, they remain far better than the current situation for Palestinians.
Regarding the Iran nuclear deal, he expressed Russia’s concern that the US seeks to condition its renewal on Iran proving it does not support groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond, an expectation he described as unrealistic.