Senate Republicans Meet Lavrov in Moscow Ahead of Trump-Putin Summit

The following article by Liels Lesniewski was posted on the Roll Call website July 3, 2018:

Delegation led by Appropriations chairman Shelby

Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, shown here at a news conference at the United Nations in January, that the U.S. and Russia might be competitors, “but we don’t necessarily have to be adversaries.” Credit: Drew Angerer, Getty Images file phot)

Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Tuesday that he hoped for an improvement in relations between the United States and the Russian Federation.

“We have a strained relationship, but we could have a better relationship between he U.S. and Russia, because there’s some common interests around the world that we hopefully can work together on,” Shelby said, according to video from the meeting in Moscow. “We can be competitors. We are competitors, but we don’t necessarily need to be adversaries.”

“So, we’re hoping that coming out of the Putin-Trump meeting in Helsinki we will see the beginning, maybe of a new day,” the Alabama Republican said. “The world’s better off, I believe, if Russia and the U.S. have fewer tensions.”

View the complete article on the Roll Call website here.