US to continue working with Russia on issues concerning national security, says White House

Washington: The US has said it would continue to work with Russia on issues that serve its national security interest, expressing hope that the two countries would team up to confront the Syrian crisis and the North Korean aggression among others. Maintaining that Russian interference would not be tolerated, the White House said on Friday the onus lies with Russia as to what type of relationship they want with the US. [caption id=“attachment_3806219” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of the White House. AP[/caption] “A lot of that depends on Russia, and what type of relationship they want to have, and whether or not they want to be a good actor or a bad actor,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters at her daily news conference. “We are going to continue trying to work with them on certain things that are very important, particularly for national security. On things like Syria, North Korea, the US would like to be able to work with them to confront some of those threats.” “Some of that will be determined by the actions that Russia takes and how they want to be perceived,” she said in response to a question on remarks made by former US president George W Bush in New York this week. In his speech, Bush was critical of President Donald Trump but refrained from naming him. “The Russian government has made a project of turning Americans against each other… Russian interference will not be successful; foreign aggression, including cyber attacks, disinformation and financial influence, should never be downplayed or tolerated,” Bush said. Sanders said the Trump administration agrees that Russian interference should not be tolerated. “Do we agree that Russian interference shouldn’t be tolerated? Absolutely. And we’ve said that many times before, and certainly would argue that has been repeated at least a dozen times from this podium,” she said.