WASHINGTON, May 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that he hoped the work of the Russia-NATO Council would be resumed in the near future.

"We hope that in the near future the obstacles in the way of the resumption of the Russia-NATO Council's work, which are artificial, will be fully overcome and this important body will resume its work based on the principles agreed on when it was created," Lavrov told journalists after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Russia announced it was withdrawing from a planned Russia-NATO Council meeting later this month in response to the expulsion of two of its diplomats from Brussels.

Lavrov said the expulsion was an attempt to disrupt the resumption of Russia-NATO relations suspended after Russia fought a brief war with Georgia over South Ossetia last August.

Moscow has announced the expulsion of two Canadian diplomats working in NATO's Information Office in Moscow.