By RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said he hoped the incoming US administration of Barack Obama would help to carry forward the Russian-American dialogue.
“Russian-US ties are definitely not at their highest now – they have known better days. However, we are optimistic and hope that they will develop. We hope that the new US administration will also make its contribution to this,” he told the visiting former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
Kissinger agreed with Medvedev’s assessment of the state of US-Russian relations and said he also shared his optimism.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently said he expected Russia’s relations with the US to improve after president-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.
He said Moscow had already seen “positive signals” coming from Obama’s transition team, pointing to two key disputes in Russia-US relations – Washington’s plans for a missile shield in Central Europe, and NATO’s eastward expansion.
Already strained by disputes over the two issues, relations between Russia and the US had suffered further blows in August when Moscow fought a brief war with Georgia over the latter’s breakaway province of South Ossetia.