Mr Putin said that there were no irresolvable problems in Russian-Turkmen relations. Speaking about the outcome of the meeting, he said that the parties would soon draft a new gas supply agreement, and that at present they were coordinating the commercial details of this big contract. He added that the two countries would establish a clear system of interaction that would be coordinated by the inter-governmental commission for economic cooperation.
Mr Putin also said that they had agreed that Turkmenistan would annually increase gas supplies to Russia by 10 billion cubic metres a year for the following few years until it reached 50–60 billion cubic metres.
He said that the talks paid special attention to regional cooperation, including approaches to determining the status of the Caspian Sea, adding that Russia and Turkmenistan had many more common positions on these issues than they had previously thought.
Finally, the Russian President said that they had also achieved visible progress in reaching an agreement on humanitarian cooperation and had drafted an agreement on contacts between the two countries’ mass media.