NICOSIA, December 2. /TASS/. The European Union’s freeze on relations with Russia is utterly counter-productive and it is in the interests of all to move forward to creating a common space of security and cooperation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulidis on Wednesday.
"We have exchanged opinions of the state of affairs in relations between Russia and the European Union," Lavrov said. "We appreciate Nicosia’s interests and the efforts that our Cypriot friends have been taking for the sake of normalizing these relations."
"We regard Brussels’ freeze on relations with Russia as absolutely counter-productive. We are certain that in the interests of the peoples of our common continent we should agree to move forward and form a common space of security and cooperation," Lavrov said. "This implies practical steps to harmonize integration processes in the east and west of Europe and Eurasia."
At Wednesday’s talks with the Cypriot officials the outlook was considered for expanding trading and economic ties regardless of the outstanding problems in relations between Russia and the European Union."
"We are certain that there exist very good prospects, first and foremost, in the context of building up investment with regard for the interest Russian companies have taken in Cyprus’s privatization plans," he said.