Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected as untrue the allegations of the US Department of State that no discussions of his possible meeting with US State Secretary Rex Tillerson in Ethiopia were held, TASS reports.
"I wouldn’t like to comment on this issue but today I have learnt that no discussion of the possibility of our meeting was held," Lavrov said. "Considering that they deemed it appropriate [to make such statements], I want to say that this is untrue."
"In actual fact, everything was as follows. In January, the UN Security Council held a session chaired by the president of Kazakhstan, to which Tillerson had been unable to come. Three days later, when I returned to Moscow, Rex Tillerson called me up and said: ‘Let us hold a meeting and let us think about the time and the place suitable for both of us," the Russian foreign minister said.
As Lavrov pointed out, during the phone call they agreed to meet if they found themselves at the same place and time. "When it turned out that both of us would be in Ethiopia this evening, we delivered the relevant proposal to the Americans. They said they would think over that," Lavrov pointed out.
"But when they were asked yesterday about whether or not the meeting would take place, they replied that the encounter had not been discussed. I am now telling you the truth and I wouldn’t like to go into details but considering that they publicly refute obvious facts, I have had to speak on that," Russia’s top diplomat said.
