MOSCOW, June 15. /TASS/. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin hopes that the United States will play a constructive role in resolving the crisis in southeast Ukraine, the head of state said during his annual televised question and answer session on Thursday.
"The Syrian crisis, and on the whole, the Middle East crisis… It has become evident to everyone that nothing will get done without joint constructive work," Putin said. "There are other hot spots."
- Putin says Washington seeks to prevent any rapprochement between Moscow and Kiev
- Russian lawmaker comments on US decision to end military subsidies to Ukraine
- Kremlin: US should persuade Kiev to give up aggressive tactics in conflict resolution
- Lavrov believes Kiev uses tensions in Donbass to distract attention from Minsk accords
"We pin hopes on the US’ constructive role in resolving the crisis in southeast Ukraine, I say the constructive role," he noted.
Russia and the United States used to join efforts in solving the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, he recalled.
"(We) came to an agreement, did not we? (We) did," Putin said. "So there exist positive examples of our cooperation. The former (US) administration directly recognized our considerable role in resolving the issue."
"So can we find common ground, can we work together? Absolutely. We can," the resident said, emphasizing that both Moscow and Washington had loads of issues, "which we should work out together."
"However, it does not depend merely on us. We can see what is going on in the United States," he said. "Evidently, it is a sign of the internal political struggle, but we can do nothing about this, we cannot exert any influence on this."
"But we are ready for a constructive dialogue," he added.