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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President of Turkmenistan, Mr President of Kazakhstan, friends,

It is a great pleasure to greet you all on the wonderful occasion that is this big sports event we celebrate today. This rally is every bit as good, and perhaps even more demanding, than the famous Dakar rally.

This kind of event brings out firmness of character and underscores our close positions and common desire to develop the good relations and traditional friendship between our three countries. This rally demonstrated all of these qualities in the highest degree.

In any sports event you need to be able to help each other, come to each other’s aid, and at the same time, you need to have winning spirit. Everything you are doing, therefore, will without a doubt contribute to building the very friendliest of relations between our countries, and we see that these relations really are growing.

We have many economic projects and we are closely connected by millions of personal contacts. We also have excellent traditions of cultural ties and well-developed humanitarian contacts. This rally has now become another area in which our three close countries are working together as strategic partners.

I congratulate you on this wonderful occasion. The President of Turkmenistan was absolutely right in saying just now that all who took part are winners really, because this kind of competition brings out strength of character, and no matter what your final place, all of you have opened a new chapter in sports competition and have achieved excellent results.

I congratulate you from all my heart and wish you a good start in the next stage and a successful finish.

Congratulations and all the best to you all.