Putin: No blocks to boosting relations with West

Russian president says improving of ties ‘depends on our partners’

Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, March 28, 2014 (Photo credit: Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti pool/AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, March 28, 2014 (Photo credit: Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti pool/AFP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he sees no obstacles to improving relations with the West, which are fraught with tension over the Ukraine crisis.

In an interview on state television shown Saturday, Putin was asked whether relations with the West would improve by the end of the year.

“This doesn’t depend on us, or not only on us. It depends on our partners,” Putin said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

“I consider that there is nothing that would impede normalization and normal cooperation,” he said.

The United States and the European Union have accused Russia of encouraging recent unrest in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russia insurgents are occupying government buildings and police stations.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.

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