MINSK, June 25. /TASS/. The West has shown its complete incapacity in key strategic areas, but "hope springs eternal" for restoring trust, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a meeting with students and professors of the Academy of Public Administration of Belarus.

"Hope springs eternal. This, by the way, has been said many times by Presidents [of Russia and Belarus] Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko in various situations during meetings with representatives of various professions, primarily in international politics," Lavrov said. "But the main conclusion that we draw, and we draw it not just out of the blue, but based on the decades that have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, is that the West is incapable of negotiating in key strategic areas that guarantee the viability of a state," the minister added.

According to him, the West is an untrustworthy partner, as history has shown. "Not just to renege on its commitments, but to declare war on you - economically and in other senses," the minister pointed out. "I cannot call what we see now in the sanctions policy of the West other than economic terrorism. If you don't want to trade with someone, then don't trade, forbid your companies to trade with a country you suddenly dislike," he said.

"But they prohibit not just their companies, but the companies of all other countries to communicate with our companies, with your ones, with those companies that do business with us and with you, with many other sanctioned countries," Lavrov stated.