MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Relations between Russia and the United States are complicated both in terms of “the essence of issues we are split over, discuss and trying to solve” and in terms of “the atmosphere that has formed due to obvious reasons,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Russia’s NTV television channel.

Most of proposals coming from the U.S. side are oriented towards their own interests, he said, adding that Russia “as a rule, tries to reckon with their approaches and find a balance of such interests,” while advancing its proposals.

“This is a very difficult work, encompassing, naturally, the current situation in the Middle East and North Africa. We are cooperating on a very difficult problem of Iran’s nuclear programme, we are part of the structure that has been set up to tackle the yet ‘frozen’ problem of the Korean Peninsula’s non-nuclear status, we are discussing the entire agenda of the United Nations Security Council,” Lavrov noted, adding that Ukraine-related topics are always present at talks with all partners. “So, issues of the international agenda only are packed with contradictory approaches and we have to look for compromises. We have always been ready for that.”

The Russian foreign minister noted that Russia and the United States had a range of bilateral problems too. “Our relations are complicated, being not merely in a state of freeze but, in a range of areas, in a dead end, where we arrived long before the Ukrainian crisis,” he said. Among such problems he cited talks on further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms the Americans are seeking to resume.