OREANDA-NEWS. The meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the 74th session of the UN General Assembly lasted almost 50 minutes, as the informational agency RBC reported. The meeting began in New York at 10:32 and ended at 11:20.

Earlier, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said that ministers would be forced to start the meeting with discussing the refusing to issue American visas to Russian diplomats, as well as new sanctions.

On September 24, before the departure of the Russian delegation to New York, it became known that ten of them did not receive USA visas. The head of the Federation Council committee on international affairs Konstantin Kosachov, the head of the State Duma committee on international affairs Leonid Slutsky and several representatives of the Foreign Ministry, including the chief translator and chief of staff of the minister Sergei Butin were among them.

Later, Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, announced that another delegation had not received American visas, which was supposed to participate in the Conference on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Among the Russians who did not receive a US visa was the head of Roskosmos state corporation Dmitry Rogozin, who wanted to take part in activities dedicated to space cooperation.

On September 25, the US Treasury announced sanctions against Maritime Assistance LLC, located in Moscow, five vessels of Transpetrochart, as well as three Russians: the director of Sovfracht’s sea transport department Ivan Okorokov, his first deputy Karen Stepanyan and the deputy general director of legal support of the company Ilya Loginov. Washington authorities believe that they participated in the supply of fuel for military aircraft used for air strikes by terrorists in Syria.