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Austria's top diplomat talks about smoke breaks with Russia's Lavrov

Earlier, the Russian top diplomat said that he had cut down on smoking

Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin

Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl

© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/. Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl said that she has reached a high level of mutual understanding with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov while they shared a smoke break after the talks.

"Of course [we’ve reached a mutual understanding with Lavrov]. I would even say that after a joint dinner, when Lavrov started to smoke, I smoked a cigarette with him," she said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, published on Sunday evening.

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"The protocol office told me that this is the only, or a very rare, case when a guest smoked with him," the minister noted. "In Vienna, we smoked a couple cigarettes as well, this also connects people."

The upcoming talks between Kneissl and Lavrov will take place in Moscow on March 12.

Earlier, the Russian top diplomat said that he had cut down on smoking. While serving as Russia’s UN envoy, Lavrov was the only one to have violated the smoking ban introduced by then-Secretary General Kofi Annan, prohibiting smoking in the UN building.

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