OREANDA-NEWS. November 23, 2009. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, on November 19 attended the inauguration ceremony of President Hamid Karzai of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

On the sidelines of the ceremony, he briefly met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The ministers discussed some issues concerning Russian-American relations in the context of the meeting between the Russian and US Presidents held in Singapore on November 15.

Lavrov also held brief meetings with UK Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan Hamrokhon Zarifi, Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Rashid Meredov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey Ahmed Davutoglu, and Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of the French Republic Bernard Kouchner, during which questions of bilateral relations and topical international problems were discussed.