November 23, 2016

Russia hopes to resume dialogue and bring relations with the US "back to a constructive course," according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, who said it would be "hard to make them worse."

Asked by journalists about the Kremlin's links with the US, Peskov said: "I'd like to remind you of President Putin's words -- numerous times he has talked about his wish to build good, mutually beneficial relations based on mutual respect and equality."

"The President always said he expected a reciprocity from Washington," Peskov added. "Now we know that our bilateral relations are at the bottom so it's hard to make them worse, but we certainly hope for resuming a dialogue and we'll start a difficult and slow process of bringing the relations back to a constructive course."

Improving US ties with Russia was a key plank of US President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy during the election campaign.

Many in Russia had expected Hillary Clinton -- who has been consistently critical of the Kremlin and is deeply unpopular in Moscow as a result -- to sweep to victory on November 8. 

Following Trump's unexpected win, there are hopes of a fresh start -- though Trump told the New York Times this week that he was not looking to "reset" US-Russia relations.

Asked about Trump's comments, Peskov referred to Clinton's previous ill-fated attempt to "reset" relations while serving as Secretary of State.

"As for a reset, we can only agree with the President-elect because this word has embarrassed itself as the consequences of that reset are not the ones we'd like to see," Peskov said.

"The term doesn't matter. It's about a will and showing the readiness for normalizing the relations -- these are the most important things."

(Source: CNN)