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Whole world waits for Russia-US ties to improve under Trump, senate speaker says

Trump said earlier in an interview with The New York Times that he favors the normalization of relations between Washington and Moscow

© AP Photo/Gerry Broome

MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. Russia expects that the relations with Washington will improve under President Donald Trump and the whole world is waiting for this, Speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference devoted to the outcome the autumn session, Matviyenko voiced hope that the US foreign policy will change after Trump takes the reigns of as president, adding that the relations "cannot be worse."

"The whole world expects this (normalization of the Russian-US relations) now, everyone is interested in this," Matviyenko said.

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"Everyone is interested in the normalization of the Russian-US relations and I’m sure that this will reduce tensions in international relations and we are also interested in this," she said, stressing that the deterioration of ties was not due to Russia’s fault.

Matviyenko recalled that Russia’s senators earlier put forward an initiative to resume relations with US Congress. "We have already reached some agreements, they were already prepared to contact and meet with us. But it is evident that the general political situation in the US (intention not to allow rapprochement with Russia) had an impact on Congress," she said.

The upper house speaker said Trump’s statements during the election campaign, "his pragmatism and the team that he is forming out of successful people and the captains of business, give grounds to hope that there will be a vector towards the normalization of ties with Russia, building mutually beneficial economic and political relations."

However, Matvienko said some pressure could be exerted on the Trump team as "the Russophobes are strong" at all levels of power in the US. "But we expect that the relations will improve,’ she added.

Trump said earlier in an interview with The New York Times that he favors the normalization of relations between Washington and Moscow but does not want to use the term "reset" for this policy. The president-elect noted that it would be "nice" if he and Vladimir Putin could get along. However, he rejected the idea to call any warming of relations between Russia and the US a "reset."

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Foreign policy United States Valentina Matviyenko Donald Trump

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