KAZAN, August 19. /TASS/. Russian and US senators currently have no contact and no such contacts are expected, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Andrey Denisov told TASS in an interview.
"I have no information about that, and I think nothing of this kind is planned for our chamber," he said, answering a question about whether Russian senators plan to visit the US following a trip to Washington by State Duma (the lower house of parliament) deputies.
"Our counterpart is the US Congress’s upper chamber, the Senate, and we currently have no contacts with it, and it seems to me that none are expected," the lawmaker said on the sidelines of the "Sprouts: Russia and China - Mutually Beneficial Cooperation" forum.
At the same time, he said the Russian lawmakers’ trip to the US in the spring could "only be welcomed." "If such contacts exist, they certainly benefit the cause. If they continue, that is also good, because even though we cannot call it a channel, we still have a small but steady line of communication," Denisov said.
Earlier, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), said in his TASS column that US lawmakers could visit Russia this fall.
In March, a group of five Russian lawmakers visited the US at the invitation of US Representative Anna Paulina Luna. The agenda included bilateral issues, the Ukraine crisis, the Middle East conflict, and a reciprocal visit by US lawmakers to Russia.