In a meeting with members of the Association of European Companies in Russia, Lavrov reiterated that GazProm fulfills all its obligations to European countries, ‘not only in its entirety but it even surpasses them,’ he said.

He also denounced that the United States tries to sabotage cooperation between Russia and the European Union in this sector and said that Washington ‘says openly’ that this relationship is contrary to the interests of energy security of the bloc.

‘(The United States) want us to have a dispute in this area, to reduce our interdependence,’ Lavrov said, as quoted by the TASS news agency.

He recalled that the White House, especially the Donald Trump administration, ‘exerted very strong pressure’ on the EU to reject Russian fuel and, instead, build terminals to receive US liquefied natural gas.

The Foreign Minister further noted that Moscow is open to cooperating with the EU, the United States and NATO in order to improve the situation in Afghanistan, however, he stressed that NATO member countries must assume a substantial and main part of the responsibility for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Regarding the prospects for cooperation with the new German executive elected at the end of September, Lavrov explained that his country observes the formation of political coalitions in Germany and will work with any government in Berlin.

‘We will accept any choice of the German people. We are not going to pretend that we have the right to judge instead of the citizens of Germany what kind of government they want now,’ he said.

pgh/llp/mem/mml