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President Putin: Dear Mr President,

Dear colleagues,

I am very glad to welcome the Syrian delegation to Moscow, headed by President Bashar al-Assad, who is worthily continuing the glorious traditions of his father, President Hafez al-Assad. Hafez al-Assad was a great friend of our people and our country, he was a political figure of international scale. And I would like to stress that at the one-to-one talk with the President of Syria, Mr. Bashar al-Assad once more showed that the warm relations of friendship between our peoples and countries, which have a long tradition, have been maintained and have good prospects.

On our part, we are firmly resolved to continue on the path of developing fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation both on the bilateral level, and in continuing our efforts together with the international community, with our partners, on regulating the situation in the region as a whole. We also expect fruitful joint work with our Syrian partners.

Welcome!

Bashar al-Asad: Thank you very much, Mr President. You talked of the historical side of our relations: we are still feeling this historical unity, because there are tens of thousands of graduates from your country in Syria who occupy key positions both in the economy and administration. We also have major fundamental projects which Russia has taken part in, and of course is currently taking part in, with your assistance.

The goal of this visit is to solve certain tasks of developing our relaitons.

Your country is very influential on the international stage. We highly value your position, and we have common, coordinated interests. We look to the future of economic and trade relations, and hope that they reach the political level that exists between us.

Naturally, there are several issues that we could discuss, but first of all I would like to stress the importance of the agreements that we signed today.