President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Ms Secretary of State, U.S. colleagues,
I am very happy to meet with you again. Unfortunately, we were unable to meet during President Obama’s visit to Russia this summer, but I hope that your visit to the Russian Federation today will fill this gap between your visits to our nation. We are truly happy to welcome you.
I know that you have had productive, intensive talks with Mr Lavrov. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs has already briefed me on your discussion. I even had a chance earlier to watch part of your press conference, which was good.
And of course, there are several important points to note, including a symbolic one: in Zurich, you assisted together to the difficult task of finding common ground between the Turkish and Armenian sides in signing of protocols on renewing diplomatic relations, and the difficulties were successfully overcome. I see this as a great example of our coordination on international issues.
We have a bilateral agenda, too. During President Obama’s visit, we prepared a whole range of bilateral decisions and created a [U.S.-Russia Bilateral] Presidential Commission. It has begun working in a variety of areas and I hope that each of these areas will be interesting.
I believe that during this visit, you have had further discussions with some of our colleagues. This demonstrates that the level of our cooperation with the new Administration of the United States is gradually advancing.
Overall, I would like to note that the recent events – such as the summit in Pittsburgh and the United Nations General Assembly – demonstrated our common disposition toward seeking answers to various current issues on the international agenda, including very difficult ones. We discuss them openly and with interest, whether they concern the Middle East peace process, Iran, North Korea, or other matters that are relevant today in international relations. And we certainly continue promoting our bilateral relations, which, I think, have recently gained additional momentum.
Thus, I hope you have a fruitful visit to Russia. Once again, I am glad to see you. We are not meeting at the Kremlin today, but it is important to meet in different locations. President Obama visited my home, and now, we are at the state residence just outside of Moscow. Incidentally, it has its own interesting history, and a broad variety of complicated issues have been discussed here at this residence. I hope that you and I will also have a chance to discuss a wide range of topics.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Thank you very much, Mr President, for this meeting and for the invitation to come out here. It was a beautiful drive on an absolutely glorious fall afternoon, so it made this opportunity even more special.
I, too, want to express how pleased we are at the work that the bi-national commission that you and President Obama announced in July is already doing.
We are going to work hard in our sixteen working groups to come up with recommendations that we can then make to you and President Obama on a range of important issues, where we believe that we can deepen our bilateral relationship, work to benefit both of our people, as well as the leadership that we can demonstrate for the rest of the world on issues that you mentioned: Iran, North Korea, and nuclear non-proliferation and arms control – the important matters that the United States and Russia should be leading on, so that the rest of the world can see the level of cooperation and benefit from the results.
We had an excellent meeting today with Foreign Minister Lavrov and a number of your officials, and we are looking forward to really deepening and broadening this strategic relationship.
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