BERLIN, June 25. /TASS/. President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) George Tsereteli welcomes a possible bilateral dialogue between Russian and US delegations in the Assembly during the upcoming annual session on July 7-11 in Berlin.

"It is always encouraging to see dialogue being fostered between two delegations especially when there are important bilateral issues between two countries like Russia and the United States," Tsereteli told TASS.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Speaker stressed that "fostering dialogue and finding converging issues rather than dividing lines is what the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly tries to do." "And I am glad to see American and Russian parliamentarians using this forum toward that end. But what we want to see is dialogue not just for the sake of dialogue, but for the sake of results."

Earlier, Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy told TASS that Russia’s delegation to the OSCE PA was preparing for "a rather active work on the session’s sidelines," and in particular, the meetings with European and possibly with US counterparts were scheduled to be held.

Last time, the Russian and US delegations held talks at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly during the winter session in 2017. The sides discussed the idea of setting up a working group to fight against terrorism and lifting the ban on adopting Russian children by Americans.

The Russian-US inter-parliamentary dialogue may also resume during the upcoming visit of Republican senators to Moscow. The Washington Post said earlier that US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman "has been organizing a trip to the country by Republican senators." "A person familiar with Huntsman’s efforts say he’s interested in demonstrating to the Russians firsthand that even the most hardline lawmakers are willing to work toward improving relations with Russia if it shows a good-faith effort," the newspaper wrote.

Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev confirmed that Republican senators may visit Russia in early July.