MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th August, 2018) Chairman of the Russian parliament's upper house Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev believes that the arrangement of Russia and the United States to resume cooperation between some ministries and departments lays groundwork for further development of bilateral relations.
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Thursday after the meeting with US National Security Adviser John Bolton in Geneva that the two parties had agreed to continue security cooperation and to resume suspended bilateral contacts across several ministries and departments.
"The sides are resuming contacts primarily between the bodies, where there are common or diverging interests. Such arrangement creates an obvious groundwork for future, which has been so needed over the past two years," Kosachev told Sputnik.
According to the lawmaker, the number of disagreements has not decreased, however, the most important thing is that the meeting has taken place and that an arrangement to make such contacts regular has been reached.
The first deputy head of the Russian upper houses international committee, Vladimir Dzhabarov, similarly welcomed the meeting.
"The dialogue continues, and that is good. Any dialogue is better than constant sanctions, threats and accusations," Dzhabarov told Sputnik.
He stressed, however, that there were topics that Russia was not going to discuss, such as its alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign.
As for the possible prolongation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, also known as the New START, the lawmaker suggested that the United States was "interested in its prolongation as much as Russia is, no more, no less."
Alexei Chepa, the deputy chair of the lower houses international affairs committee, also noted the positive nature of the meeting. He expressed belief that such meetings should be held more often, despite disagreements between the two sides.
In particular, he mentioned the differences on the prolongation of the New START treaty, counterterrorism and the Russian alleged interference in US elections.
Following the meeting, Russia's Security Council said that Patrushev and Bolton had discussed North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, and the Iran nuclear deal during the Geneva talks. They, however, failed to adopt a joint statement because the United States wanted it to contain a remark on the Russian alleged interference in the US election, which Moscow has repeatedly categorically denied.
