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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, colleagues,

I am very glad to see you.

The Republic of Korea is one of our key partners in Asia; in fact, it is our second-largest trade partner after the People’s Republic of China. In 2017, bilateral trade soared by 23 percent, increasing by another 13 percent in the first nine months of 2018.

We are working actively on the international scene, and this includes our efforts to resolve the main and most sensitive issue, that of the North Korean nuclear problem.

We always have a lot to discuss: the scope of our relations is very huge.

I am very happy to see you.

President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jae-in (retranslated): Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank you for the warm welcome I received in Moscow in June and Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon received in Vladivostok at the fourth Eastern Economic Forum.

Also, I would like to say that Federation Council Speaker [Valentina] Matviyenko visited Korea last month. I am glad that our countries maintain active contacts at the top and high levels.

It should be said that last week we hosted a successful First Korean-Russian Forum of Interregional Cooperation, which has become a positive venue for strengthening cooperation and interaction between Korean and Russian regions.

I would like to use this occasion to thank you for your attention to that forum, which you conveyed in your message of greetings delivered by Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East [Alexander] Kozlov.

I am grateful to you for your attention and support. We have launched a major peaceful process on the Korean Peninsula starting with the Olympic Games in PyeongChang.

We are preparing for two meetings, one between the presidents of the United States and North Korea, and a return visit of President Kim Jong-un to Seoul. We hope that these two meetings will bring positive results and will help us make yet another step towards peace on the Korean Peninsula.

This year, Korean-Russian relations have been developing faster than ever in all spheres, allowing us to move our bilateral cooperation to the regional level while preserving the values of universal peace and prosperity.

I hope we will maintain the current level of relations between our countries. I believe that this will enable us to attain the common goal we have set for the 30^th anniversary of our diplomatic relations in 2020. This goal is to increase bilateral trade to $30 billion and the number of tourists to 1 million people.

I hope that today we will continue our constructive dialogue on the intensive development of Korean-Russian strategic partnership and on strengthening cooperation while ensuring peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and Southeast Asia as a whole.

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