Moscow, 18 December: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has confirmed the plans of Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev to meet US President-elect Barack Obama soon after the latter's inauguration."During the telephone conversation (in November - Interfax) between our leaders, President Medvedev and Barack Obama agreed to work on the basis of pragmatism and hold a top-level meeting soon after Obama's inauguration," Lavrov said at a meeting with US Senator Richard Lugar.Lavrov expressed the hope that "the principles and approaches that were set out in the Sochi declaration [approved in April 2008] regarding Russian-American relations will be consistently implemented".Lavrov said that the declaration also mentions the differences between the two countries. "We will try to eliminate these differences," Lavrov said."Russia is ready for this and it hopes that the new (US) administration will also be ready to consider any issues and strive for looking for mutually acceptable solutions," Lavrov said.He added that in the relations between the two countries "a lot of benefit has been gained for Russia and the USA as well as the whole international community in various spheres, including combating terrorism, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the peaceful use of nuclear energy".