President Zardari holds wide ranging talks with President Medvedv

Moscow Mayh 12, 2011: On the second day of President Zardari’s visit to Russia the two countries signed an agreement on promoting air travel and two MOUs to promote cooperation in energy and investment and a one on one meeting between two presidents followed by delegation level talks that continued through the lunch hosted by President Medvedev in honor of the visiting Pakistani President.

 

Briefing the journalists about the meetings Spokesperson to the President Farhatullah Babar said that the first meeting between the two heads of state originally scheduled to last for 30 minutes continued for over 90 minutes while the second meeting in which delegations of both countries participated continued over lunch for another 90 minutes. In between the two meetings one agreement and two memoranda of understanding were signed which were also witnessed by Presidents Zardari and Medvedev, he said.

 

The first meeting between the two Presidents was also attended by defence minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, Minister of State Hina Rabbani Khar and Pakistan’s Ambassador in Moscow Khalid Khattak. The second larger meeting at the delegation level was attended, besides them, also by Petroleum Advisor Dr Asim, Secretary Commerce Zafar Mahmood, Secretary Production Aziz Bilor and Spokesperson Farthatullah Babar.

 

He said that discussions both in the limited group and at the larger delegation level were comprehensive, covering various aspects of bilateral relations and regional situation and were marked by a mutual desire to further broaden and expand the relations between the two countries. President Medvedev echoed President Zardari’s call for greater contacts at the level of businessmen and the two leaders agreed to institutionalize political contacts at higher level.

 

President Zardari invited the Russian President to visit Pakistan which the latter readily accepted and tasked his foreign office to work out a mutually convenient date for the visit to take place this year.

 

Farhatullah Babar said that the issues that the President raised with his Russian counterpart included up gradation of Pakistan Steel Mill, building of TAIPI gas pipe line, Pakistan’s full membership of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Russian participation in the building of new city in Sindh Zulfikarabad, special economic zones in Pakistan to encourage Russian investments, up-gradation of old power plants in Pakistan, development of coal fired power plants and power transmission line between Tajekistan and Pakistan. President Zardari also emphasized currency swap agreements and the opening of branches of a Russian bank in Pakistan and of a Pakistani bank in Russia.

 

The President invited the Russian companies to look at the Pakistan Steel Mill and make proposals to revamp it as a joint venture project to increase its production capacity to 7 million tons a year in what he said would be a win win both for Pakistan and Russia.

 

Responding to it the Russian President announced the setting of a Working Group to look into all these areas of cooperation pointed out by his Pakistani guest.

Farhatullah Babar said that a recurring theme of President Zardari during the visit has been to emphasize upon his Russian hosts that while the dynamics of the Cold War may have forced the two countries to remain at some distance, the realities of the present day world dictated that they “turned a new page in our relationships”- a proposition with which the Russians seemed to agree.

 

Medvedev echoed Zardari’s sentiments when he said, “we need to pursue business and humanitarian relations and I propose frequent exchanges of delegations between the two countries”.