Ties With Washington Need 'Reset 2.0', Says Russian Foreign Minister

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, called for a new "reset 2.0" in  relations between Moscow and Washington, Sunday.

"We are absolutely interested in bringing the ties to normal but it was not us who destroyed them. Now they require what the American would probably call a 'reset'," Lavrov said in an interview, reports Reuters.

"The current U.S. administration is destroying today much of the cooperation structure that it created itself along with us. Most likely, something more will come up - a reset no.2 or a reset 2.0," he said.

In the initial period after Obama took office, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  had gifted Lavrov with a red "reset" button intended to signal a new start in the relationship between the two countries. However, the move backfired as the Russian label corresponding to the word "Reset" showed "Overload".

Lavrov said that due to the efforts of  the Russian President Vladimir Putin, the state of affairs in Ukraine were improving. He said that the ceasefire was going well though problems crop up sometimes. 

Commenting on the sanctions imposed by the West, Lavrov said that Russia did not feel isolated in the world because of such measures.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, Lavrov slammed the west and NATO, blaming them for not changing their cold war genetic code.

He also said the problems in Ukraine were the outcome of a coup d'état in that country supported by the U.S. and the European Union.  Through this, the U.S. and the EU aim at stopping Ukraine from playing its natural role as a connecting link between the East and the West and preventing it from taking a  non-bloc status, he said, reports the Associated Press.

Mentioning Russia's annexation of Crimea in April,  Lavrov said that it was a choice made by the Russian speaking population in Crimea.

Before Lavros' speech at the UN, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had said that Russia's annexation of Crimea was a crime.

"Russia has, with its annexation of Crimea, unilaterally changed existing borders in Europe and thus broke international law," Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in his address at UN, reports AP.