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Addressing the new ambassadors, the President wished them successful work in Russia and touched on a number of current international issues.

Letters of credence were presented by Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia Oleg Yesayan, Ambassador of the Republic of Austria Margot Klestil-Loffler, Ambassador of the Republic of Fiji Isikeli Uluinairai Mataitoga, Ambassador of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Ahmed al Hassan, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Lesotho Makase Nyaphisi, Ambassador of the Republic of Malawi Isaac Chikwekwere Lamba, Ambassador of the Principality of Monaco Claude Giordan, Ambassador of the Republic of Niger Amina Djibo Bazindre, Ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman Mohammed al Hassan, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Tonga Sione Ngongo Kioa, and Ambassador of the Republic of Zambia Patrick Nailobi Sinyinza.

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Ladies and gentlemen,

Today marks the official beginning of your diplomatic missions in the Russian Federation. I sincerely wish you success in your efforts, and I hope for development of good relations between our countries and peoples. 

This year brings to a close the first decade of the new century upon which we have all placed big hopes. This was a difficult period for Russia, a time of major trials. Over this time, we concentrated on consolidating our country’s democratic foundations, building a modern high-tech economy, and steadily raising our people’s living standards. 

In our foreign policy we have strived to ensure the conditions needed to work together on building a new framework for our cooperation, and to replace confrontational policies and archaic geopolitical models with a new joint approach enabling us to combat more effectively global challenges such as terrorism, food shortages and climate change, and build a just, balanced and stable world order.

Today we see that the international community is showing increasing solidarity and taking a more responsible approach to addressing the issues on the international agenda. The financial crisis, which we are all working on overcoming today, is a good example. Cooperation between countries on pursuing strategic development goals and guaranteeing economic growth and technological modernisation has reached a new level.

One of the biggest tasks still before us is to reform the mechanisms guaranteeing global and regional security. A number of our ideas, including Russia’s proposal on drafting a new legally binding treaty on European security are receiving increasing support, and this is very pleasing to see. Conclusion of this new treaty we propose could set a good example for other parts of the world. Russia will continue to work towards bringing about positive change in international affairs and develop mutually advantageous partnerships at both bilateral and multilateral level. 

Ladies and gentlemen,

Russia shares long decades of friendship with the Republic of Zambia, one of Africa’s influential countries. We plan to develop our political and economic dialogue and expand our mutually beneficial joint work into new areas.

Russia and the Republic of Austria have solid traditions as good neighbours, upon which rest the friendship between our peoples and, of course, our respect for Austria’s neutrality and recognition of the important part Austria plays in Europe and the world. We are seeing positive growth in our relations in practically all areas. We seek to develop them further, including in the investment and humanitarian spheres. 

We value greatly our friendly relations with the Sultanate of Oman. On the agenda now is the question of expanding mutually advantageous cooperation in the trade and economic and energy sectors. We are also interested in building up our cooperation on regional security issues, including the joint fight against piracy at sea.

We want to activate in all different areas our contacts with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which has an important part to play in efforts to achieve a lasting and just peace in the Middle East. We expect that the upcoming visit to Russia by King of Jordan Abdullah II in March will give new impetus to developing the full range of our relations.

The peoples of Russia and Armenia share friendship and mutual trust that go back centuries. Today we are steadily developing our alliance and giving it greater substance with every passing year, moving into promising new areas and carrying out major joint projects. We consider it a priority to continue our work within the integration organisations in the Commonwealth of Independent States, and to work together on the international stage, of course. Russia is ready to continue its efforts to achieve progress in the negotiations on a settlement for Nagorno Karabakh. I am sure that this entirely serves the interests of ensuring peace in the Caucasus.

We seek to build up our contacts with the Kingdom of Tonga and organise cooperation on consolidating stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region.

We place great importance on developing our ties with Malawi, above all in the trade and economic sector, and we think that there are good prospects and potential we can build on.

We are pleased to see the growth in our cooperation with the Kingdom of Lesotho, and we want to diversify our relations and carry out modern and promising projects. 

We are interested in strengthening our multifaceted relations with Monaco and think the future of our ties lies in expanding our business contacts and also developing humanitarian and cultural exchanges.

We welcome the interest the Republic of Niger’s leadership shows in activating our bilateral ties, and consider it important to make productive use of the resources we have for developing trade and economic and other cooperation in the interests of both countries.

We are ready to build up our cooperation with the Republic of the Fiji Islands in the United Nations and other international organisations. There are good opportunities for developing our cooperation in areas such as fishing and tourism.

In conclusion, I want to congratulate you all once more on the official start of your missions in Russia. I hope that your professional and personal experience will raise bilateral relations between our countries to a new level and contribute overall to developing international partnership and strengthening peace on our planet.

I wish you success and all the very best.