MOSCOW, January 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov disagrees that relations between Russia and the West are tenser than before.

After talks with Norwegian counterpart Borge Brende on Monday, Lavrov said, “They have never been ‘cloudless’. We don’t create pretexts to make relations artificially tenser.”

“In recent months I have not observed any pretext to draw such conclusions,” the Russian minister said.

Commenting on Russian-Norwegian relations, he said, “Nothing has a negative impact on them.