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From the Russian side, the meeting was attended by Director General of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Director General, I am very glad to see you again in Russia. I know that you have already had detailed conversations with your colleague Alexei Likhachev, Director General of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom.

We continue to work very actively with the IAEA. Russia continues to cooperate in a lot of very important areas and remains an undisputed world leader in this area. We not only use but actively promote nuclear energy and consider it an environmentally friendly form of energy; we do everything to improve the safety of nuclear facilities. We are building new power plants according to today’s principles: Kursk nuclear power plant-2 uses fast neutrons. We are making small stations and developing a nuclear fleet. A small floating nuclear power plant was installed in the north. All this is in great demand not only in Russia, but also in the economies and energy sectors of the whole world. And we are ready to share what we have developed with all our interested partners.

As you know, we are doing a lot of work in this regard on the international arena; we are implementing numerous projects in many countries with your assistance and support. I have mentioned your assistance and support once again, because it is very important, on a planetary scale, without any exaggeration. I mean ensuring nuclear energy safety and compliance with safety standards throughout the world.

We are ready to continue working in all these areas and are grateful to you for your reciprocal steps to promote our joint work and, of course, we are ready to discuss any issues that you consider relevant. I know that you have particularly sensitive and important issues on the agenda of our meeting today, and we, of course, are ready to discuss them and do everything to ensure security in any place where we are in one way or another involved in nuclear energy.

Welcome.

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi: Thank you very much, Mr President.

It is very important for me to be here. We had our first conversation, you may remember, in St Petersburg, almost one and a half years ago, which was very important at that time. And I think everything that has occurred ever since makes this conversation even more timely.

I agree with you that these are very important times, times with challenges; and we will be discussing those, with regards to some sensitive issues, also in terms of the world energy revolution, where, like you say – and you are here with Mr Likhachev, with whom we had a long morning working with our technical teams, discussing a range of issues.

So, I think this conversation, for me, is really indispensable, really important. I value this opportunity and I am ready to discuss with you all these matters.

It is very good to be in Russia again. Thank you very much.

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