MOSCOW, June 17 (RIA Novosti) - Cooperation of Moscow with the largest European countries is not aimed neither against the USA nor any third country. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke about it in an interview with the Polish newspaper Trybuna, the text of which appeared on the site of the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday.

The Russian Foreign Minister refuted the existing opinion that Russia, allegedly fearing threats on the part of Washington, shows increased interest in big European states.

"It is difficult for me to agree with such point of view," the minister said, answering this question. He added that "Moscow understands the legal interests of the Western partners, including the USA, in the CIS space, connected with the need of rebuffing a terrorist threat in Afghanistan and now also in Iraq, and with ensuring access to energy sources.

"We want one thing: the mechanisms of implementing these interests should be understandable and transparent and should rest on generally recognized norms of the International Law," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underscored. Taking into consideration the present character of Russian-American relations, he continued, this is a quite soluble problem. "In a number of spheres, for example in combating terrorism, our relations are developing as between allied states. Our economic cooperation is also growing stronger," he said. Quite a lot of perspective energy projects are being discussed.

"Differences certainly remain," the Russian Foreign Minister admitted. "But we have both efficient instruments and, which is the main thing, a political will to settle them. The minister did not specify, however, in what aspects of cooperation differences exist.