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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Abbas,
I want to welcome you to the Kremlin. This is not your first visit to Russia, and you have started to visit other parts of our country of late. You were in Grozny, in the Republic of Chechnya. We think this is very good and useful.
I also want to congratulate you on your election to the office of President of Palestine, and I hope for productive cooperation, all the more so as the problems are not becoming fewer. We need to move forward, and we will therefore discuss together today issues concerning the Middle East peace process, the Palestinian-Israeli dialogue, and any other matters. Once again, I wish you welcome.
President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas: Thank you very much, Mr President.
Thank you for your congratulations on my election as President of the State of Palestine.
Russia was one of the first countries to recognise the State of Palestine in 1989. This was followed by the opening of a fully-fledged embassy of the State of Palestine in Moscow, and since then we have been developing cooperation and coordination between our countries.
You mentioned my trip to the Republic of Chechnya, and I fully agree with you that this was a very good and useful visit. We had the opportunity to learn about the Chechen leadership’s experience in political matters and also in work in the republic’s social sphere. We were received with great warmth in this republic that is small in size but part of the large Russian Federation.
Mr President, there are indeed a large number of problems and questions that I would like to discuss with you.