Russia to talk with West when progressive leaders emerge

Russia will be ready to conduct a serious dialogue with Western countries when forward-thinking people rise to power there, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Primakov Readings forum on Wednesday.

"The West has stopped cooperating with us. It has built a wall, by and large. We simply keep in touch with those who are ready for it," Lavrov pointed out. "When and if we see that the people who have taken over in the countries and organizations, created in Europe and the United States, are able to see a little beyond two-year electoral cycles, a little deeper than the wish to send someone's son to jail or, conversely, to prove someone's incompetence but do nothing apart from that, then we will, of course, be ready for a serious conversation."

"In the meantime, in anticipation of that bright era, we are always ready to talk to sane people from the expert community, with pleasure," Lavrov added.

He stressed that Russia "is not making a tragedy out of the current situation."

"I believe that this is a tragedy for the Western civilization, for the Western system of the world order, which relied on the principles of globalization the Americans had put forward. Those principles have completely discredited themselves as an untrustworthy system that is unable to respect and preserve its own principles and mechanisms imposed on everyone else," Lavrov said.