Official website of the President of Russia

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Vladimir Putin: The United States is one of our major partners, one of the most powerful countries in the world, our leading trade and economic partner and, unquestionably, our main partner as far as strategic stability in the world is concerned.

I very much expect that on this global issue of interest to everybody we will be able not only to exchange views, although this would be important. I consider it important to hear from President Bush personally his position on these issues, not as retold by his office, not as retold by the press, although I respect both. I want to hear all that from him. I think Mr Bush will find it interesting also to listen to the position of the Russian side as expressed by the Russian head of state. I look forward to starting a process of working out common approaches to defining the future structure of international relations.

On bilateral relations, I expect to discuss economic issues. There are things to talk about. Our trade with the United States has reached over ten billion dollars, and there are branches and lines of cooperation promising and interesting enough both for Russia and the United States.

Finally, we need to discuss and coordinate many of our approaches to the solution of regional problems, especially such key ones as the Balkans, the Middle East and some others which are of interest both to the United States and Russia.