MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The current pause in the Russian-US dialogue on combating terrorism is playing in the hands of terrorists, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said in an interview with TASS.

"Obviously, the possibility of a full-scale dialogue [between Moscow and Washington] in the sphere of counter-terrorism fight cannot be addressed independently from the general context of bilateral relations between our countries," he said. "However, the importance of this Russian-US cooperation, its objective necessity is difficult to be overestimated. Any breaks in it can be advantageous only to terrorist groups."

According to the senior Russian diplomat, the United States is demonstrating no interest in resuming dialogue with Russia on combatting terrorism. "We have to state that there is no progress on the issue of resuming the corresponding dialogue between Russia and the United States, which was maintained in 2018-2019 under the auspices of the foreign ministries, and, in our view, was quite dynamic, useful and productive. We can only regret that it was suspended at the US initiative under an invented pretext. As of today, we receive no signals to any changes in the situation," he said.

The deputy foreign minister stressed that political will on both sides is needed on this matter. "We have repeatedly said that Moscow cannot be interested in dialogue more than Washington is, and we continue to stick to this position," he added.