MOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/. Moscow and Washington have held a number of contacts on bilateral irritants since the beginning of the year, with some progress in place, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said, adding though that the main issues, including the return of illegally seized Russian diplomatic property and the resumption of direct air traffic, remain without progress.
"There were contacts, and not just once," he told reporters on the sidelines of the International Security Forum when asked a respective question. "I understand there’s no reason to make any statements or fall into a euphoric tone simply because there’s no rollback, no revision, no reconsideration of the understandings reached on this track last year. Of course, that’s not the case, but for us it’s important that, yes, it’s slow, yes, it’s creaking, very sticky, very difficult, very complicated, but nevertheless, in some small ways, we are making some progress. We’d like to increase the momentum somewhat, but it’s difficult for now," Ryabkov noted.
"There’s been no progress whatsoever on the key issues: the return of our illegally seized diplomatic property and the resumption of direct air service. There are no signs of Washington moving towards our demands in these areas. However, we continue to work on other peripheral, less significant, relatively minor issues," he added.