MOSCOW. May 12 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said obstacles to Russia-NATO cooperation are being created artificially.

"When I met with the U.S. State Secretary [Hillary Clinton], I mentioned that the resumption of interaction within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council is being hindered by a number of artificial obstacles, including the NATO training in Georgia, and the absolutely ungrounded deportation of our two diplomats [from Brussels] by canceling their accreditation," Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday.

This proves that "not everyone in NATO wants to go back to the beginning of our equal cooperation and not everyone likes the current atmosphere in Russian-U.S. relations," said Lavrov.

"To those who are familiar with the details of the situation, it is absolutely obvious that it's an attempt to prevent the new U.S. administration from hitting the brakes to stop the inertia of the past years," he said.