Russian deputy foreign minister and U.S. officials met in Istanbul on Friday to discuss a number of technical difficulties in their bilateral relationship. said the embassy in Ankara.

The conflict in Ukraine was not brought up, a U.S. a spokeswoman for the embassy said.

The two sides would discuss “tough matters” such visas, embassy staffing levels, and the operation of each side’s organizations and agencies abroad, among other unidentified issues, according to the minister Sergei Ryabkov, who was quoted by Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.

Ryabkov said the meeting was between heads of department from the Russian Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department – a relatively low level, according to Russian state news agencies. The technical meeting should not be seen as a sign the two sides were ready to resume discussing “major issues”, he added.

A spokesperson from the U.S. Embassy in Ankara confirmed the meeting and said “a senior official from the State Department was in Istanbul to meet with Russian interlocutors on a narrow set of bilateral issues”.

The American and Russian embassies in Washington, D.C. In a series of tit-for-tat expulsions that saw scores of Russian and American diplomats hauled back to their home countries, embassy in Moscow have been drastically reduced in recent years.

Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russian foreign intelligence, and U.S. The highest-level face-to-face interaction between the two sides since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February took place on November 14 in the Turkish capital Ankara between William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.