The meeting took place on the sidelines of the G20 summit’s working sessions.
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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, friends, it is a great pleasure to see you.
Mr President, we already had the chance in the corridors yesterday to start discussing our common interests and affairs.
I want to start by saying once again that Egypt is a priority partner and Russia’s longstanding and reliable friend. We have a rich history of cooperation and our bilateral relations have become particularly fruitful over these last years and offer great interest.
I value our good and trusting relations, Mr President. I note too that our relations are developing through our government and parliamentary channels, and we have organised cooperation between our security councils and law enforcement agencies.
Economic cooperation matters are at the centre of our attention, of course. In short, we have plenty to discuss and we are very pleased with this.
I am happy to see you.
President of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (retranslated): Thank you very much, Mr President.
Let me start by thanking you for this opportunity to meet and talk today.
Egypt is constant in its desire to develop our bilateral relations and take them to a new level of strategic partnership.
Of course, our contacts constantly underscore the need to fight terrorism, given the regional and international events we see today. We always take into account our peoples’ national interests and security concerns, and we think that Russia can help to achieve security and balance throughout the world.
Mr President, we greatly value the successes achieved over recent years in bilateral cooperation. We have concrete results. In particular, last year, we signed the contract for building a nuclear power plant at El Dabaa, and Russian company Rosatom has already started work.
I also note the on-going contacts between our industry ministries on establishing a Russian industrial zone in Egypt, which would take our partnership to an unprecedented new level.
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