MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The dialogue between Russia and the United States on irritants stalls, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS in an interview.

"As regards the general assessment of relations with the United States, in my opinion, stalling is the word that is the most applicable to them at present," Ryabkov said. "In this case, I speak strictly and exclusively in respect of topics designated as irritants in our dialogue with Washington for a certain period of time thus far," Ryabkov noted.

Several conclusions follow from that, the deputy foreign minister said. "The first one is that we cannot but need to modify the format of our dialogue with the US side," he noted. "While the first two rounds were in third countries and Ambassador [Alexander] Darchiev headed them from our side, now, by virtue of the need to perform significant additional preparatory, or if you like, even research work in respect of whether there are any flexibility limits from the American side, whether there is the base for further agreements - the level of communications naturally become the working one. But they continue," Ryabkov added.