Official website of the President of Russia

Документ   /

Mr Medvedev met with Senate Democrat majority leader Harry Reid, Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, and other Senate members.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who represents California in Congress’ lower house, thanked Mr Medvedev for visiting her home state and meeting with local entrepreneurs there.

* * *

Speech at Meeting with Leaders of US Congress House of Representatives

President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: It is a great pleasure to be here in the Capitol and meet with the leaders of Congress. I am very pleased to have this chance to discuss the broad range of issues that we have all been working on of late, and in which we have obtained some quite good results. President Obama and I have made our contribution, and now we hope that our countries’ parliaments will follow with the needed decisions in the security area, including ratifying the New START Treaty.

But I will remember this trip not only for the chance to address security issues and discuss the international agenda, but also for the chance it has given us to engage in economic matters.

I visited California, a wonderful place that has created an excellent environment for doing business in high technology field. This is one of our country’s big priorities and we would like to build something similar in Russia. The experience that I saw in California, in Silicon Valley, could, with a few adaptations of course, be put to use in our country too.

I am optimistic about the future. We have a very wide-ranging agenda. We will examine international security issues and will address various complex matters such as Iran’s nuclear programme, North Korea, the Middle East peace process, climate change, aid for countries hit by the global financial crisis, and the need to work in cooperative and coordinated fashion to overcome this crisis that has affected all of our economies and the global economy in general.

I think that this visit will make a positive contribution to developing our contacts. Once again, I say that it is a real pleasure to be here in the House of Representatives and to meet with you, Ms Speaker. 

<…>