Russia will judge the Donald Trump administration by concrete steps, but outgoing US President Joe Biden wants to leave Trump a heavy legacy, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, TASS reports.
"We would be judging by specific steps. It's obvious, though, that the Biden administration would like to leave a legacy to the Trump administration as bad as they can," Lavrov said. "This is similar to what Barack Obama did to Donald Trump during his first term," the top diplomat pointed out.
The foreign minister recalled that in late December 2016, Obama expelled Russian diplomats: 120 people along with their families. "[He] did it on purpose and demanded them leave on the day when there was no direct flight from Washington to Moscow. They had to move to New York by buses with all their luggage, with children, and so on and so forth," he noted.
At the same time, Obama announced the seizure of Russian diplomatic property, Lavrov recalled. "We still never were able to come and see what is the state of this Russian property," Lavrov said. "This was diplomatic [property]. They never allowed us to come and see it though under all conventions. They just say that these pieces we don't consider as being covered by diplomatic immunity, which is a unilateral decision, never substantiated by any international court," he emphasized.
According to the top diplomat, this episode of expulsion and confiscation of property has not created a promising "ground" to start a relationship with the Trump administration. "I think they [the Biden administration] are doing the same," he said.
Lavrov says that Russia wants normal relations with the United States and sees no reason why the two countries cannot cooperate.
"Trump is a strong and friendly politician, but he is not pro-Russian. The ball in Russia's contacts with the US president-elect is in Trump's court," Lavrov says.
