Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev:

I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak with you once again.

Lately various events occurred about which our close partners in Kazakhstan should be informed.

Our two countries are now part of a Customs Union and this is a very important event – we have been approaching it for a long time and are now in the final stage of coordinating all our positions. It seems to me that this is very important and in the final analysis favourable for our states and peoples.

This year we will still have quite a number of meetings whose schedule we could also discuss now among other topics.

I would like to welcome you to Moscow once again.

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev:

Many thanks for the invitation to the races, this is a truly wonderful event. Seldom is there an opportunity to combine a meeting with such a remarkable diversion.

We closely followed your negotiations with Barack Obama. I think that the negotiations in Moscow were excellent. The meeting in Italy [of G8 leaders] was also very productive.

We are completely confident that as of January 1, 2010 the Customs Union will be operational and when there is an absolutely open border this will be a very serious step in the direction of our further integration. I am absolutely convinced that this will interest other members of the CIS: already now we see that some wish to enter, though they still have to execute all necessary procedures.

In addition to our future meetings in various formats, I would like to invite you to joint exercises of the recently established CRRF [Collective Rapid Reaction Force] which will be held for the first time in Kazakhstan.