Russian President Vladimir Putin met with visiting former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Thursday.

It is not Putin’s first time to meet Hariri as they met nine years ago, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Sputnik news agency as saying.

The meeting took up the situation in the Middle East and joint relations, Peskov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Hariri on Wednesday.