Igor Levitin reported on the results of his working visit to Georgia. After a three-year break, the Russian-Georgian Intergovernmental Commission held a session in Tbilisi. As a result, the Georgian party consented to opening a railway link between Sochi and Tbilisi. Igor Levitin and Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli signed the appropriate protocol.
Georgia intends to restore this line together with Russia and other countries. Russian Railways and Georgian Railways will create an international consortium for attracting financial means for constructing and maintaining the railway line.
It was also decided to form a Russian-Georgian working group made up of representatives from core departments to settle customs and border issues and with goal of allowing the railway branch to work in an uninterrupted way.
Vladimir Putin pointed out that the protocol they signed was a step towards actually implementing the Sochi agreements. According to the Sochi agreements the issue of a Sochi-Tbilisi railway link should be synchronised with normalizing the situation in the Galski Region, resolving the refugee problem and problems of the electric power industry. The President said that he will give the Security Council an order to keep track of the situation together with their Georgian colleagues.
Russia and Georgia also agreed on establishing a regular ferry line between the Russian cities on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, and the Georgian ports Poti and Batumi.
Another one of the meeting's themes was a bill on the Russian sea register. Vladimir Putin promised to sign the document that has already been approved by the Council of Federations. Accepting the law will allow up to 700 vessels to return under the Russian flag and to transport approximately an additional 180 million tonnes of cargo.
The Transport Minister thanked the President for his support in clearing the Russian sailors in Nigeria. The head of state reminded that he had talked to the President of Nigeria in September 2005 during a United Nations Security Council session.