U.S. considers important to continue communication with Russia - State Department

The United States cannot inform about any specific plans of communications with Russian representatives but believes it is important to continue such efforts, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said at a briefing.

"I'm not in position to speak on any potential future engagements except to say that we believe in the value of such engagements, because we believe in the needs to maintain open channels of communications," Price said.

"These channels are important at all times but they are especially important in times of tensions and certainly in times of conflict," he noted.

"As for the results of the meeting [in Istanbul - TASS], it was the meeting narrowly focused on small set of bilateral issues, bilateral irritants that tend to in some cases to get in the way of the productive conversations between our two countries," the Spokesman said.

"It is fair to say that we have more to discuss to remove those irritants entirely," Price added.

The meeting at the level of department heads of US and Russian foreign policy establishments was held last Friday in Istanbul to discuss irritants in bilateral relations.