President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President,
Over these last few years, over the last eight years, this is your third visit to Russia. You visited our country in 2002 and 2004. This is evidence of the stable and friendly relations between our countries. I hope that today, we will have the chance to discuss all the different issues relating to cooperation between our countries.
Our bilateral trade is probably not growing as fast as we would like, but it did reach a figure of $130 million last year. I think we could look today at what we can do to develop it further.
We will look at international security issues, and discuss our economic and humanitarian cooperation. In short, we will go over all the items on our bilateral agenda.
There are issues of great relevance to both our countries, and on which we need to coordinate our positions. These issues include a peace settlement in the Middle East, fighting piracy, and a number of other problems affecting the situation in the world today.
Once more, I welcome you to the Kremlin, Mr President.
President of the Republic of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh: Thank you very much, Mr President.
First of all, I want to congratulate you on being elected to this high office by the Russian people.
My current visit aims to further strengthen the bilateral relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Yemen. There are friendly ties between us, the old ties built up between the countries of the Arab world (and Yemen among them, of course) and the Soviet Union.
We would like to discuss with you today bilateral issues, and also issues on the international agenda that are of mutual interest. This applies to both the economic and cultural spheres.
We would also like to exchange views on the situation in the Middle East, on counter-terrorism, and on preventing the piracy that, as you know, takes place in the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa region.
Preventing piracy is an issue of great importance and concern for us. Realising the importance of this matter, we recently set up a regional centre in Yemen to work on the issue.
Our objectives in taking these steps are to ensure safe passage for ships and strengthen international peace and security. These issues are relevant and important for the entire international community of course.
We are ready to discuss continuing to provide all necessary favourable conditions to Russian combat ships as far as fighting piracy in our region is concerned.
Thank you once more, Your Excellency, for your hospitality and warm reception. We are ready to discuss all of the issues you mentioned in all aspects and detail.
Thank you very much.