MINSK, December 3. /TASS/. An overwhelming majority of the European Union countries realize that it is counterproductive and futile to implant anti-Russian sentiment within the CIS counties, an assembly of post-Soviet states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a televised interview with the Belarussian channel STV on Saturday.
"As far as the Eastern Partnership is concerned, we have never taught anyone how to live," Lavrov said. "We have never have any doubts that our neighbors and friends want good relationships with their partners in the West, East, North and South."
Moscow is aware of some countries’ desire to use the Eastern Partnership for anti-Russia purposes, he said.
"They do not make up a majority but they are being rather aggressive," the minister said. "The overwhelming majority of the EU countries realize it will be another attempt made by improper means and that it is counterproductive and futile to implant anti-Russian sentiment within any contacts with the CIS member countries," Lavrov said.
"We have appreciated Belarus’ staunch position against such attempts as well as the ones of other participants in the Eastern Partnership," the Russian top diplomat said. "In the fact that the final declaration does not contain, in spite of the desire of certain participants in the summit, anything otherworldly, we can see a large part of Belarus that did not allow to make the process politicized and ideological and that can see its own interest in developing normal relations with Western Europeans in it."
Nor has Russia any doubts about sentiment in Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan, he said.
"Certainly, we can see how our Ukrainian, Moldovan and Georgian counterparts act," Lavrov emphasized. "But I will repeat once more I am convinced they will definitely not be capable of rechanneling the Eastern Partnership into an anti-Russian direction.".