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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good morning, Mr Prime Minister, friends,

It is a pleasure to have this chance to meet with you again here in Antalya.

Despite the challenges we face today in politics, security, and the economy, Russian-Italian relations continue to develop and produce successful results.

I want to start by congratulating you on the successful organisation of Expo-2015. A huge number of people, more than 21 million, visited the event. We were very happy that more than 4 million people visited the Russian pavilion.

Overall, we have plenty to discuss regarding the various areas of our cooperation. I am very happy to see you.

Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi (retranslated): Thank you very much, Mr President.

Vladimir, I too am very pleased to see you today. Let me start by once again, on my own behalf and on behalf of the entire Italian people, expressing our solidarity and condolences for the tragedy that happened to the plane flying from Sharm el-Sheikh.

We already spoke about this on the telephone, but I think it is important for me to take this opportunity today to express personally our sorrow over this tragedy.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you. We are now in the concluding stage of studying the evidence at our disposal.

Matteo Renzi: I think that we need to make a show of unity. We need this unity above all in the fight against terrorism, as we have already discussed.

Once more, thank you very much for Russia’s participation in Expo-2015. Yes, around four million visitors came to the Russian pavilion, but the most important thing is that the President of the Russian Federation visited the event. This was very important. I remember how we visited the Russian pavilion together and I was even lucky enough to be able to try some of Russian cuisine’s finest dishes.

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