President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to Moscow. Today, as I understand, you finalized the documents that will be examined in Yekaterinburg. I hope that all these documents have been approved and that we can now say that preparations for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, which will take place soon in Yekaterinburg, have been completed.
Your meeting, like that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member states’ defence ministers, is one of the essential events preceding the summit of heads of state, and undoubtedly, aside from the work on finalising the documents, you also focused on issues of relevance for developing the organisation itself and building up its authority, and this is also of importance for the member states.
There are other issues too on the international agenda today: a number of upcoming events – meetings on the level of secretaries of security councils of SCO member states, ministers of the interior and heads of anti-drugs agencies – all reflect the broad range of issues that the SCO is working on today, and the many complex challenges that the SCO member states and indeed the entire planet face now.
I am ready to discuss with you any other questions you may have. If there are no other questions, it is also with pleasure that I above all ask you to pass on my best wishes to the leaders of your countries, who I am looking forward to seeing soon.