MOSCOW, August 22. / TASS /. The American administration openly calls on their European colleagues not to develop cooperation with Russia in the economic area, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an interview with the Vesti program on the Rossiya-1 TV channel on Saturday.

"Americans, in principle, are not very shy when they need to promote their economic interests. Diplomatic subtleties, half-hints, half-tones have long been discarded. You mentioned US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, with whom I regularly communicate, the last time the telephone conversation was on August 16. He he was just returning from Europe, where, among other things, he actively campaigned against the European countries, including the countries he visited, to develop mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation with Russia," Lavrov said.

"For example, in the Czech Republic he insisted in plain text that all plans for the further development of nuclear energy in the Czech Republic should be oriented towards the United States, not Russia," Lavrov added.

Lavrov noted, it is very difficult for Moscow to interact with this logic: "We have always proceeded and continue to proceed from the fact that the key to success in any international endeavors is initiative, creative proposals, but always aimed at mobilizing collective efforts to solve global problems."

Sanctions as round-up

According to Lavrov, the US administration is doing everything not to be bound by any international multilateral obligations, using, in particular, extraterritorial sanctions. "When the United States decides that China is a threat because it sells too much to the United States and buys too little, the Americans impose restrictions on imports from the PRC. When the United States decides that Iran, although it is doing everything that was agreed in the JCPOA, no less misbehaving (all the others do not think so), then sanctions are imposed against Iran," he said.

"When the United States thinks that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro deserves punishment, they announce sanctions against him. And then they tell the rest of the world that they do not dare to trade with those states that the United States wants to isolate," Lavrov added.