Official website of the President of Russia

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Opportunities for expanding bilateral trade, economic, and humanitarian cooperation were also reviewed at the talks.

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President, I wish you a warm welcome to Moscow.

We are in quite regular contact with each other, and this is the guarantee of good relations between our countries. I want to continue today with the talks we began earlier, and discuss with you our bilateral ties of course, including our trade and economic cooperation. Various agreements were signed during your official visit, some involving cooperation in large-scale projects. I hope that we can give new impetus to these efforts.

Overall, the situation in our trade relations has stabilised a lot compared to the crisis period, and bilateral trade turnover has increased by almost 40 percent, which is good to see.

Slovenia takes an active position on many international issues, and you, with your experience, play a personal part in this. I would therefore also like to discuss some foreign policy matters with you today, including some of the frozen conflicts, and the situation in general in Europe and in the world, where we see many different developments taking place at the moment.

I hope this meeting will give us the chance within this short time to exchange views on all subjects of mutual interest, and talk about the prospects for our bilateral relations and the current international situation.

Once more, I wish you welcome.

PRESIDENT OF SLOVENIA DANILO TURK (retranslated): Thank you very much, Mr President.

I am very glad to see you again, and am especially happy that this meeting has come so soon after my official visit to Moscow.

We in Slovenia very much welcome the impressive advancement in our relations, which received a new boost after my visit to Moscow. This was very much in line with our expectations, and of course we now want to see further progress.

I would like to discuss several international issues today. Eighteen months ago, you put forward a very interesting initiative on Europe’s strategic security. Of course we are to adopt new approaches now that we are living in a multipolar world, and its system is in need of new institutions. Your initiative has sparked much discussion, and we hope that this discussion will continue.

A few days after my official visit to Moscow, the NATO-Russia summit took place in Lisbon, and it was clear there that progress was underway. This of course was thanks to your initiative rather than to my visit, but whatever the case, what we are seeing is an important step forward, and we now must make every effort to take it further.

We in Slovenia value greatly your efforts and contribution to resolving various frozen conflicts such as those in Nagorno Karabakh and Transnistria, for example. Of course I would like to hear your views on the future prospects here. The basic principle we all must share of course is that of a sincere desire to support these efforts and aspirations.

I am most pleased to have this opportunity to discuss all of these issues with you today.

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