Moscow says US sanctions 'unpromising'

MOSCOW - The sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States are groundless and will not affect Moscow's foreign policy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday.

"We consider that the sanctions are imposed absolutely without any grounds as for the reasons behind them... Russia's honest, open and constructive policy cannot be changed by them," Lavrov said in an interview with a local newspaper.

Lavrov's remarks are in response to the upcoming release of two reports by the US presidential administration, concerning backgrounds of high-ranking Russian officials and the feasibility of imposing new economic sanctions on Moscow.

The minister said that Russia's foreign policy is based on the country's national interests and will not submit to foreign pressure.

"The fact that our foreign policy enjoys a broad support in society is the best evidence that the attempt to change our foreign policy by putting pressure on our elites and certain companies is unpromising," he said.

In August 2017, US President Donald Trump signed into law a new package of sanctions against Russia. Unlike previous sanctions bills, the new legislation grants US lawmakers power to block Trump from unilaterally lifting the sanctions.

According to Lavrov, US President Donald Trump has been forced to make anti-Russian decisions under pressure from his national political opponents.

"Judging by the personal meeting with US President Donald Trump in the White House, or his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg and their telephone conversations, I did not see Trump undermine his election campaign pledges to restore relations with Moscow," Russia's Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.

Lavrov also said that Washington would gradually understand the incorrectness of its course toward Moscow, and he noticed that recently some members of the Congress and political circles in the United States, as well as diplomats, acknowledged quietly the absolute abnormality of such a situation and the need to improve it.

Washington's relationship with Moscow has been sour for some time, amid disagreements involving the war in Syria, the conflict in Ukraine and the Kremlin's alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections, among others.

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