President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President, Turkish colleagues,
It is a pleasure to welcome you all once more and continue these talks now in expanded format.
Mr President, we said just now that our relations are at a high level. We have partnership relations that are very robust indeed in their economic substance, as the growth in our bilateral trade attests. We hope that our economic relations will stay on this upward path this year, despite the current difficulties.
Our economic relations have a very solid foundation, including a number of big projects on which we are working together, the Blue Stream project in particular, and other energy sector projects. We are cooperating in other areas too, and are interested in developing our ties in the electricity and nuclear energy sectors, and build up industrial cooperation. I think that this would give us a solid base on which to build up our relations for many years to come.
We are also interested in developing cooperation in the transport and agriculture sectors, and we would like to see more projects in all these different areas.
Our countries are both powers in the Black Sea region, and this determines the need for us to make a common effort to maintain peace and security in the region and in the Caucasus in general. We hope very much for strategic cooperation with our Turkish friends in this area. I think that we have already made good progress in this respect. We hope that this kind of coordination of our efforts will continue in the future.
Of course, we also want to build up our cultural and humanitarian contacts and develop tourism. I think that this could also be a reliable growth source for our relations over the coming years.
Mr President, I am sure that your state visit to the Russian Federation will help to strengthen the productive cooperation between Russia and Turkey.
Allow me once more to welcome you to Moscow.