MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. Tuesday’s telephone conversation between Russian and US presidents was long and productive and the Russian-US dialog is not stalled, the chairman of the Federation Council’s international affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachyov, told TASS.
"The third contact between the two presidents confirmed that the Russian-US dialog is going on, that both countries are interested in it, and that it can be conducted only on an equitable basis. In that sense the discussion was not only prolonged but productive, too," Kosachyov said. "Slowly but surely Russia and the US are shaping their own agenda of bilateral relations and it is to be hoped it will be a working and constructive agenda."
The discussion was focused on two issues that Russia and the United States can tackle only if they rely on each other. "These issues are resistance to terrorism, in the first place, in Syria, and the deterrence of North Korea’s nuclear and missile program. It was agreed to step up working contacts at the inter-departmental level, which is very important in the context of lending a practical dimension to the mechanism of dialog between the high representatives of the two countries’ foreign ministries, which is already in place and ready for operation," Kosachyov said.
Kosachyov believes it is very important to resume as soon as possible the inter-parliamentary dialog between Russia and the United States, which at the moment remains frozen due to the US Congress’s stance.
"Time is ripe for this," Kosachyov said.
As the Kremlin’s press-service said earlier, Putin and Trump held a telephone conversation to discuss a number of crucial issues of cooperation, including concerted action by Russia and the United States in the struggle with terrorism in the context of the Syrian crisis and soaring tensions over North Korea. Also, they came out for arranging a personal meeting on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hamburg.