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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Tokayev,

I am delighted to welcome you to Russia, to Moscow, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. We will have another meeting in Kyrgyzstan in several days, but your visit to Moscow is a landmark event, and I am grateful to you for this, as well as for the fact that we implemented a project together that we presented today.

It is quite modest, to my mind, but this is the first step, a very important step towards energy cooperation in the region. We have just had a conversation with heads of energy companies behind closed doors, and we heard their assessments and views. We will, as agreed, issue instructions to create a working group that will analyse all potential scenarios and all possible and perspective steps in this direction.

But, apart from this, we have topics to talk about, we have a huge volume of joint work, since the situation is changing in a very positive way in all areas, in a way that we need, and I would like to thank you for this.

During our meeting today, we will have an opportunity to cover each segment in an informal setting, including industrial production, manufacturing, services, transport and high-tech fields, including space – there are many issues to be discussed here.

In general, I want to say once again that I am very happy to see you. Welcome!

President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev: Mr Putin,

I am very glad to be in Moscow on this day and I would like to begin by wishing you a happy birthday. I know that you do not celebrate your birthdays, but in any case, this is an important event in the life of each individual. So, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to wish you good health and longevity –whether it is political longevity as head of the Russian state or simply in life. I believe that for many people you are an example of a resilient, physically strong person, and I know that you are an athlete. But in any case, you cannot have too many kind wishes on your birthday.

As for cooperation between our countries, it is developing successfully in many different areas. First and foremost, it is strategic cooperation and relations between our states are an alliance in most diverse spheres.

Today we took part in the launch of a major project. Indeed, in terms of figures it might not be all that big, but nevertheless a large amount of work has been done.

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