В.Путин.Совместная пресс-конференция. Part 2

Joint News Conference with President George Bush of the United States of 2 June 16, 2001 Ljubljana Совместная пресс-конференция c Президентом Соединенных Штатов Америки Джорджем Бушем 16 июня 2001 года Любляна. In my meetings today with the President and the Prime Minister, I reaffirmed America’s support for Slovenia’s integration with Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community. I especially thank the people of Slovenia, and I want to thank the leadership for such warm hospitality, and congratulate the people on the 10th anniversary of its independence on June the 25th. VLADIMIR PUTIN: First of all I would like to confirm everything President Bush said when he characterized our meeting. I can even add that I had expected a frank, open and trusting dialogue. But, as they say, in this case reality exceeded expectations. Because it was not only a trusting conversation, but I would say an exceedingly open and interesting conversation for me. The President as a historian displayed a very broad view of the problems. We set aside our papers and had a very interesting and positive discussion of the past, present and future of our countries and the development of the situation in the world in the long term. It was an interesting conversation. I think we have found a good basis for promoting cooperation and establishing a pragmatic partnership between Russia and the United States. And we reaffirmed our fundamental common position. I want to recall what the President said just recently: Russia and the US are not enemies; they do not threaten each other, they may well be allies. Since the United States and the Russian Federation have stockpiled more nuclear weapons, more weapons of mass destruction than any other country, I believe that our countries bear a particular responsibility for preserving universal peace, for maintaining security, for building a new security architecture in the world. All that presupposes close bilateral and international cooperation to strengthen the foundations of security in the 21st century. Any unilateral actions are but a pretext for impeding the solution of the main problems of our time. One of the central topics of our talk was strengthening strategic stability. We have compared our approaches. For me it was important to hear what the President of the United States thinks from him personally. For my part, I set forth the Russian approach to this matter. There are differences in approaches and, of course, they cannot be overcome at once, but I am sure that a constructive dialogue lies ahead, and there is a desire to talk on this topic, to listen and to hear each other. I think it is very important. The President and I have agreed to issue instructions to our defence ministers, foreign ministers and experts to continue the discussion without any delay. Of course, we discussed some acute regional problems: the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Balkans. The discussion has shown that on the main problems of our time there is much more that unites us than divides us. The differences between the two countries on these key global problems are not irreconcilable. And I think it would be wrong to give prominence to these problems and to ignore the main assets and principles of our relations that form the basis of the relations between the United States and the Russian Federation. We were one with Mr. President that the current state of Russian-American economic ties does not match the potential of our countries. The Russian government, the businessmen of both countries and the US Administration certainly can do more to keep up the momentum on both sides. And Mr. President has kindly agreed to give an additional impetus to American businessmen, and we will do our best to host a representative business delegation from America in the Russian Federation, especially since it will be led by one of the top Administration officials. We have discussed many practical issues, we spoke about energy and the use of the Caspian resources. As you know, a new pipeline system is shortly to come online, which will carry energy resources from the Caspian via Novorossiisk and westwards. It is a joint project of two companies, a Russian and an American one. I am sure that it will not be the last project.