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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Madam President, colleagues, it is a pleasure to welcome you once again.

I am very glad to have this opportunity to meet with you on the sidelines of the G20 summit and I would like to thank you for your active participation in the summit.

The Republic of Korea is one of our priority partners in the region. We maintain relations in many different areas. Our trade has reached $25 billion and rose by another 3% in the first six months of this year.

I am very glad for this chance to discuss the entire range of our bilateral relations.

President of South Korea Park Geun-Hye (re-translated): Mr President,

I would like to begin by thanking you for the successful organisation of the G20 summit; I think that you have done a great deal of work preparing for it. I feel that our summit agenda is outstanding.

We established diplomatic relations in 1990. Since then, trade between our nations has grown 110-fold. Despite this level of economic growth, we have not reached our full potential and we still have areas for future growth.

We have not sufficiently developed the opportunities for cooperation between our nations. This is due to factors such as the North Korean nuclear problem and other issues stemming from the Korean peninsula.

Together with Russia, I would like to look into how we can take our bilateral relations to a new level, given that I have this occasion to meet with you.

One of our most important government objectives is to strengthen cooperation with Eurasian nations. I have long dreamed of connecting our railroads, so that people can take the train from Busan through Russia and into Europe. I have already mentioned this several times in my speeches. I am very interested in this matter. It testifies to increased cooperation with Eurasian nations.

You also have a great deal of interest in expanding cooperation – to develop and cultivate the Far East. So if we were to join our efforts and our policies, it would provide good momentum for developing our cooperation and our relations, as well as helping ensure peace and stability in the Northeast Asia region.

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