Kremlin adviser Nikolai Patrushev said that trust between Russia and the United States must be restored and that Moscow is ready to resume cooperation with Washington in the Arctic, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
US President Donald Trump has reached out to Russia in an attempt to end the three-year war in Ukraine. He and his administration see China as the biggest threat to the United States, the agency recalls.
The Kremlin welcomes the opportunity to restore ties with the United States after the confrontation over Ukraine triggered what diplomats from both sides described as the most serious crisis in the history of their relations.
"Russia and the United States, as great powers, historically bear a special responsibility for the fate of the world," the Kremlin adviser, a Cold War veteran who developed the Kremlin's national security strategy, told the “Kommersant“.
"And the experience of recent decades and even centuries shows that in the most difficult moments of crisis, our countries have always managed to overcome their differences," he added.
Trump's turn to Russia has deeply worried many of the United States' traditional European allies, who fear that Washington may turn its back on Europe. Patrushev, a former KGB officer from St. Petersburg, the birthplace of President Vladimir Putin, is seen as a hardliner, Reuters notes.
He also said Russia was ready to resume cooperation with the United States in the Arctic.