"We are ready for negotiations, but considering the sad experience of talks and consultations with the West and Ukrainians... I hope a treaty will be reached at some stage on European security, and in this context
the Ukraine crisis will be resolved," Lavrov stated during a press conference following a UN Security Council meeting.
Lavrov emphasized that, unlike China, the West does not address the root causes of the conflict in its
initiatives on Ukraine.
"This already concerns the content of the dialogue;
China has very clearly indicated in its first initiative the need to start with addressing the root causes of the current crisis in Europe and to work on agreements to eliminate these causes," he said.
Thus, the West is trying to push through
Volodymyr Zelensky's plan by all possible means.
Lavrov's comments were in response to a question about Russia's possible
participation in the second summit on the Ukraine conflict and the outcomes of the recent conference in Switzerland.
Russia and the United States have held unofficial and so-called
"second level" expert level
contacts to discuss issues related to the conflict in Ukraine, Minister Lavrov added.
"I will tell you in confidence — we have had unofficial contacts with the Americans involving political experts, political experts who know each other and understand the policies of their governments," Lavrov told the press conference, adding that Ukraine was on the agenda of such contacts.
Despite the fact that the two countries are holding phone conversations from time to time, there is nothing significant in these talks, he noted.
"There are occasional conversations: on the phone, the head of the CIA [William] Burns met with the director of the SVR [the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service] last year on neutral territory. There are some phone conversations at various levels, but we don't see anything significant there," he said.
Russia will be ready to
work with any elected president of the United States, the foreign minister claimed.
It appears that Israel’s goal is to
involve the United States in the escalation of tensions with Iran, the minister observed.
Russia hopes the West will do everything to ensure that such ideas,
"if they exist in the Israeli leadership," will remain only ideas.
Moscow is doing everything to "calm down the situation," Lavrov added.
Russia will continue seeking the truth regarding the explosions of the
Nord Stream gas pipelines, Lavrov said.