President Vladimir Putin: Mr President, Colleagues,
Allow me to welcome you to the Kremlin. It gives me great pleasure today to receive you, the President of one the biggest and most unique parliamentary assemblies, in Moscow. The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly represents people of a very diverse range of views and political convictions. Russia has not been working in the PACE for such a long time, but we will try to do all we can to consistently develop our cooperation. We will use this opportunity and we will also use our presidency in the Council of Foreign Ministers to achieve these aims. We see your visit, Mr President, as a step that will help strengthen our ties with the Parliamentary Assembly.
Rene Van Der Linden (Translated from Russian): Thank you very much, Mr President.
It is a great honour for me and also an excellent opportunity to meet with you in order to thank you for the cooperation that we have developed, including through the Russian delegation in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly and through our cooperation with the Russian Federation’s foreign minister.
As President of the Assembly I will strive to strengthen our relations and in particular to create a good atmosphere of trust in our relations. My own experience, first as a member of the PACE, then as chairman of the European People’s Party group and finally, as President of the Assembly, has shown me that meetings with members of the Russian delegation have always been very useful, both for improving mutual understanding and for strengthening my own commitment to consolidating our relations.
Your country’s presidency in the Council of Europe is both an opportunity and a very important incentive. As far as I know, this is the first time that Russia holds the presidency of this European organisation.
We would like to congratulate you on Russia’s first decade of membership in the Council of Europe and to say how highly we assess the progress that has been made over these ten years.
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