Too Early to Speak About Warming in Russia-US Relations - Russian Official

Dialogue between Russia and the United States is underway and there is a basis for bilateral cooperation, yet it is too early to speak about warmer relations, the speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, Valentina Matvienko said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russian lawmakers are ready to do their best to resume and deepen the cooperation process, she added.

"It is still early to speak about warming in Russia-US relations, however, a very intensive dialogue is underway… In general, Russia and the United States have the basis for collaboration. Now everything depends on the good will of the US side," Matvienko told the Izvestia newspaper in an interview published Tuesday.

According to Matvienko, the US establishment includes a lot of opponents to the idea of improving relations with Russia, and their influence is quite strong.

"They are just tying [US President Donald] Trump's hands," Matvienko stressed.

At the same time, there are a lot of signals proving that Russia-US relations may normalize, including the arrangement on the establishment of a joint working group, the visit of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow, the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Washington and the upcoming meeting of the two presidents at the G20 summit in Hamburg, according to the official.

During his election campaign, Trump expressed his willingness to work closer with Russia, as well as regret over the state of the Moscow-Washington relationship under the Obama administration.

US-Russia relations worsened following disagreements over the crisis in Ukraine. The United States imposed sanctions against Russia after Crimea held a referendum in 2014 in which a vast majority of its residents decided to reunify with Russia. Washington and its allies have accused Moscow of meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs, while Russian authorities have repeatedly denied the allegations.