German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul is meeting his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
A correspondent for the Russian Interfax news agency reported Wadephul and Lavrov, followed by aides, shaking hands before the press was asked to leave.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the meeting is taking place at the German initiative.
Moscow has been sanctioned by the EU over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine which the Kremlin launched in February 2022. The last meeting between on this level was held in January of that year, between veteran diplomat Lavrov and Germany's then-top diplomat, Annalena Baerbock, who was on a visit to Moscow.
Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tofan used part of his time before the General Assembly to present a vision of small nations serving as "regulatory sandboxes" for new technologies.
"Technology is moving faster than regulation almost everywhere, and artificial intelligence is widening that gap," said Tofan, who worked as an investor and businessman before becoming the head of Moldovan government two months ago.
"We want Moldova to become a place where emergent technologies can be tested responsibly through regulatory sandboxes, where regulators learn alongside companies, rules adjust with evidence, and good ideas do not wait years to reach the real economy."
Addressing the UN General Assembly, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng called for safeguarding the post-WWII order, saying the world wanted "peace, not war."
"We should turn into action the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and reject the Cold War mindset and bloc confrontation," Han said.
"Major countries shoulder special responsibilities for safeguarding international peace and security and they should take the lead in complying with the rules, upholding the rule of law, and doing what's right."
Speaking at the UN on Saturday, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng said the world should reject "unilateral military actions that violate the UN charter and circumvent the Security Council authorization," in an apparent reference to the US attack on Iran.
"China holds that the sovereignty and security of the countries in the Middle east, including the Gulf, should be respected, international industrial and supply chains should be kept stable and unimpeded, and global trade should be safeguarded," he said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also took aim at India in his speech as he discussed the limited military clashes between the uneasy neighbors last year.
"A year ago, Pakistan faced external aggression from India under a false pretext," the prime minister alleged. "Pakistan exercised its inherent right of self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations charter."
He praised the country's military saying, "They silenced the enemy, repulsed its attack, and taught it a lesson it shall never ever forget," as the UN's TV feed cut to an Indian observer in the assembly shaking his head as he listened.
Prime Minister Edi Rama told the chamber that while Albania was not a developer of "frontier models" in AI, "we are a nation that has already lived the future others are still debating," given how outside actors had tried out the technology's darker capabilites on its citizens.
"The greatest immediate danger is not that artificial intelligence will stop obeying humanity. The greatest danger is that it will obey the wrong human beings perfectly," he said.
