Moscow ready to mend ties with Washington under Trump: Deputy FM

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov says Moscow is ready to mend ties with Washington under the administration of US president-elect Donald Trump.

"The Russian side is ready, without wasting time, to begin the work to fix the current state of relations with the US, which have been taken to a crisis, a deadlock by the outgoing administration," Russia's TASS news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying on Monday.

The deputy foreign minister said Russian authorities had little knowledge about Trump's policy plans, adding that Moscow had found disparities between Trump’s campaign pledges and the real politics he would implement when he takes office.

"We shall be judging by deeds, not by signals or promises," Ryabkov noted.

In an interview with Russian NTV Channel published a day earlier, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Russian parliament, also expressed hope for an improvement in Moscow-Washington relations, saying, Russian President Vladimir “Putin and Trump have numerous common points and shared views.”

The parliament speaker stressed that the US president-elect needed to make practical steps towards rapprochement with Russia, noting that “restoring trust and respect” should be a primary goal in relations between the two countries.

Volodin also took a swipe at outgoing US President Barack Obama, saying he either ignored Russia’s initiatives or deliberately “whipped up tensions, therefore contributing to the growing animosity” between Russia and the US.

Meanwhile, senior Russian Foreign Ministry official Ilya Rogachev said in an interview with Interfax that his country doubts Trump’s pre-election promises to cooperate with Russia in Syria, arguing that the president-elect would be only able to proceed with ideas that are approved by "establishment, political elite in the US."

Relations between Washington and Moscow are already at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War in 1991, due to a number of issues, including the Ukraine crisis.

The US and its allies accuse Moscow of sending troops into eastern Ukraine in support of the pro-Russian forces there. Moscow has long denied involvement in Ukraine's crisis.

Ties between the US and Russia further deteriorated when Moscow last year launched an air offensive against Daesh terrorists, many of whom were initially trained by the CIA to fight against the Syrian government.

Commenting on the news of Trump's victory in the US presidential election, Putin said during a speech at the Kremlin on November 8 that Russia looks forward to restoring bilateral relations with the United States.

“We understand and are aware that it will be a difficult path in the light of the degradation in which, unfortunately, the relationship between Russia and the US are at the moment,” he said, adding, “It is not our fault that Russia-US relations are as you see them.”

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