Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Prime Minister, I wish you a warm welcome to Murmansk.

We have a very important working meeting today. Several months ago, I had the pleasure of making a state visit to your country, and during that visit we settled the very important matter of a treaty between our countries, which today will finally be signed.

Our relations have been developing very well of late. We have economic results (this year is looking a lot better than last year), and political and humanitarian contacts.

I hope that this meeting in Murmansk, a city that holds a particular place in Russian-Norwegian cooperation, will also be very productive.

I wish a sincere welcome to you and your delegation.

Prime Minister of Norway Jens Stoltenberg (retranslated): Mr President, I want to thank you for inviting me and all of our delegation to Murmansk in order to strengthen our good-neighbourly relations.

It is a special event that has brought us here to Murmansk, namely, the signing of the treaty that we reached agreement on in April this year.

This treaty will strengthen and confirm the warm and friendly relations between our countries, and will give us the chance to expand and develop our relations in this and other areas.

I hope that this will open a new era in our bilateral relations. I am very happy that we have arrived so rapidly at the signing of this treaty after reaching our agreement in Oslo.

Dmitry Medvedev: This is a sign of our political will.