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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

Greetings to the participants in the 11^th International Meeting of High Representatives in charge of security issues.

Over years, your regular communication and exchange of experience and assessments have proved their importance and helped resolve key issues of ensuring global and regional security and strategic stability.

Your agenda today is also quite packed and important. First, you will discuss the international situation at hand and its prospects, analyse major modern threats, including international terrorism, extremism, arms and drug trafficking, transnational crime and illegal migration and, of course, food and cyber security matters.

Clearly, the international situation can be described in terms of mounting instability. Different regions see old hotbeds of tension expand and new ones emerge, the negative burden of conflicts is piling up, and people in many countries are experiencing the dramatic aftermath of the foreign-engineered coups.

This state of affairs directly stems from the desire of individual states and associations to preserve their dominance and impose their rules as they continue to act in complete disregard of other countries’ sovereignty, national interests and traditions. All of that goes hand in hand with building up military capacity and brutal interference in the internal affairs of other countries, as well as the attempts to secure unilateral advantages from the energy and food crises provoked by a number of Western states.

Russia is convinced that there is a workable alternative to this destructive course and policy of blackmail and illegitimate sanctions, which includes the strengthening of stability around the world, the consistent building of single and indivisible security, and the solution to formidable tasks leading to economic, technological and social progress. To get there, it is primarily important to coordinate the efforts of all countries and to ensure painstaking joint work based on the principles of mutual respect, partnership and trust. These approaches are laid down in the revised Russia's Foreign Policy Concept.

I have said more than once and I will say it again: our country stands ready to establish close interaction with all countries that have an interest in countering common threats and challenges facing humanity.

We highly appreciate the fact that Russia has many partners in different regions and on different continents and the historically strong, friendly, and trust-based ties with the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America and we will work to fortify them in every way we can.

I am sure that acting together we will build a more just multipolar world, and the exceptionalism-driven ideology, as well as the neo-colonial system that made it possible to exploit the resources of the whole world, will inevitably become a thing of the past.

I hope you will have a constructive and productive meeting, and outline new forms and areas of practical cooperation for the good of our countries and peoples in the interests of peace and stability on the planet.

I wish you every success and all the best.

Thank you.