Russia has no intention of going into isolation, relations with the West will return to their previous level sooner or later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday addressing students of the Urals Federal University.
“Our dialogue with (German Foreign Minister) Frank-Walter (Steinmeier) has never been interrupted,” he said. “I really appreciate the opportunity to communicate with my German counterpart candidly, frankly, without smoothing things over.”
“We do not make a tragedy out of this (the situation in the Russian-German relations – TASS),” Lavrov went on to say. “We have said on numerous occasions that taking offence, going into isolation is no choice of ours.”
“I am confident that our ties will return to a sustainable path sooner or later, the more so because their further degradation meets neither our countries’ nor Europe’s interests,” he added.
Lavrov noted that “there is a growing awareness in Europe that there is no alternative to normalizing relations and relaunching cooperation mechanisms, adding that freezing cooperation between Russia and the EU, including in the energy sector, “was, of course, a mistake.”