MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov thinks relations between Moscow and Washington need a new “reset,” he says in an interview to be aired Sunday, blaming the freeze on the United States.

“Now what’s needed is something that the Americans will call a ‘reset’,” Lavrov told Russia’s Channel 5 television, according to a transcript published on the Foreign Ministry’s website.

He was referring to the drive to improve strained ties launched by President Barack Obama in 2009, when Lavrov’s then US counterpart Hillary Clinton handed him a red button with the word “reset” misspelled in Russian.