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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister, colleagues, let me wish you a warm welcome once again.

I am very pleased to have this chance to meet with you on the sidelines of the  Background information Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit. Of course, I want to begin our talks today by congratulating you on the start of the official procedures for Pakistan’s accession to the SCO as a full-fledged member.

Pakistan holds an important place in Russia’s foreign policy. We have traditionally had friendly and constructive bilateral relations and we are developing our ties through various ministries and agencies.

I think that our trade and economic ties are regrettably still rather insufficient and do not match our countries’ possibilities. We need to make a big effort to change this situation.

We take the same approach to the challenges that we face, and one of the biggest problems on this list is the fight against terrorism, of course. We are very happy that we now have the chance to pursue regular contacts through our work in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif (retranslated): Mr President, we are very happy to meet with you and would like to thank you for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to me and my delegation.

I am very happy that in recent years, the relations between our nations are gaining momentum, and this fits my point of view and my vision of our relationship. I would like for the relations between Russia and Pakistan to be multifaceted and to expand to a wide range of areas, including trade, defence, infrastructure, energy and cultural ties.

We are grateful to you, Mr President, for the support you have given us within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s cooperation. The people and the government of Pakistan thank you for the attention you have given to cooperating with us.

I am pleased to note that we have developed close cooperation between our foreign ministries within the framework of a strategic dialogue. Not long ago, our nation’s Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister and Defence Minister visited Moscow.

And we are happy there are institutional frameworks and mechanisms to ensure that we exchange views on important and priority issues such as fighting terrorism, drug trafficking and giving attention to non-proliferation issues.

I would like our political cooperation to be transformed into a strong economic partnership, and with this in mind, I will once again note the recent visit by our Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister and Defence Minister with regard to discussing a draft agreement on constructing a gas pipeline that will stretch from the north to the south of our nation. All the formalities have already been passed on our side and now, the agreement only needs to be signed by the Russian side.

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