MOSCOW. Jan 17 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed hope that the administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will refrain from double standards in Syria and make the fight against terrorism a top-priority task of his politics.
"We are realists and of course, we are watching how the new U.S. administration is getting ready to enter its rights. I'd rather not run to either extreme. Now there are too many predictions and speculations in the media and in the political science community," Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.
"Some are splattering with euphoria, others say that nothing is going to change and there is nothing to be cheering about. It is absolutely no point talking about it now," Lavrov said.
"Only when everyone has taken their seats in the new administration, when practical work has started, it will become clear what the relations between the U.S. and the world will be like," he said.
Lavrov said he believes that Trump has "separate views of his own that are largely different from those of his predecessors, not only Democrats but also Republicans".
"Underlying these views is the fundamental interest of the U.S. as Trump understands it," he added.
"Once we hear that for Trump, the top priority in the foreign policy will be the fight against terrorism, we, naturally, can only welcome it since this is exactly what our American partners were missing before," Lavrov said.
Lavrov went on to express hope that Trump and his team adheres to a different approach and "that they won't be using double standards in order to make use of the fight against terrorism to pursue some kind of objectives that have nothing to do with this cause".