At the beginning of the meeting, in the presence of the heads of state, Director General of Rosatom Alexei Likhachev and Foreign Minister of Ethiopia Gedion Timotheos exchanged the earlier signed Action Plan between the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom and the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation on the development of a nuclear power plant project in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
On the Russian side, the talks were attended by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak; Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin; Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office – Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov; Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov; Minister of Healthcare Mikhail Murashko; Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov; Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina; Director of the Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev; Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko; Deputy Minister of Economic Development Vladimir Ilyichev; and Director General of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev.
Earlier that day, Vladimir Putin, Abiy Ahmed, and other leaders took part in a meeting of the Global Atomic Forum.
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The beginning of Russian-Ethiopian talks
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister, friends, let me once again warmly welcome you to Moscow. We are genuinely pleased to see you.
Ethiopia is our long-standing reliable partner in Africa. If I am not mistaken, diplomatic relations between our countries were established in 1898.
Our relations are making steady progress, and trade is growing. The intergovernmental commission is working effectively. We have good cooperation in humanitarian areas, above all, training specialists.
Mr Prime Minister, we remain in constant contact, and we are genuinely pleased to see your representative delegation. Earlier this year, our delegation visited Ethiopia. I am aware that you had an in-person meeting with its head, and I would like to thank you for that.
Overall, our relations are gaining momentum across all areas, and we are very pleased that things are going that way.
Once again, welcome. We are very pleased to see you.
Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed: Mr President, I would like to thank you for the invitation and a warm welcome extended to me and my delegation.
It has been almost a year since we met last time in Kazan for the BRICS summit. I sincerely hope that our next meeting will be in Addis Ababa. That would be very historic.
As you have said, we do have very strong bilateral relationship, where we share a common history, religion, also lots of policies. So, enhancing this historical background to make better the future is very important. From our end, we want to reinforce our mutual respect in all forms of cooperation. We also want to align strategically and share priorities. We also want to engage our partners in the development of diplomacy.
As you have said, we do have a very good relationship. I’m sure this visit will also strengthen this relationship and bring it to the next level. Thank you very much, Mr President.
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