Esteemed colleagues, dear friends,

I am ready to inform you briefly about the results of our work, but, first of all, I want on behalf of all the participants to cordially thank Kazakhstan, the Kazakhstan people, the leadership of Kazakhstan and President Nursultan Nazarbayev for the initiative to hold in this marvelous place our meeting and for the brilliant organization of work.

I think I will express the common opinion by saying that our discussion was very intensive if informal, and a candid one on the most urgent issues of coordination in the CIS expanses.

We spoke of the struggle against terrorism, of joining forces and of the Commonwealth countries' participation in the efforts of the international coalition. We noted that the military stage to a significant extent is being brought to completion, and that it is our common task to shape conditions which would be conducive to normalizing the life in Afghanistan. Particularly since this is a border state for many of our countries. We spoke about this in practical terms. We also spoke of our further interaction in the sphere of economic cooperation, in the field of economic integration. A variety of points of view were stated here, different opinions, but everybody has agreed that we all need this.

We also spoke of political interaction in the Commonwealth area, of the considerations that are presently in the field of vision of the publics of our countries. We concentrated on important state problems which now bear an international character and reflect on the international climate.

We expressed support for the effort of the Moldovan leadership at resolving the internal political contradictions and consider that the line of the Moldovan leadership, of the President of Moldova is built in a politically correct fashion, is well-considered and directed to satisfaction of all the political forces by democratic methods for the attainment of peace, stability and prosperity in the Republic of Moldova.

We paid necessary attention also to the pre-election situation in Ukraine on the Ukrainian president's initiative. The CIS, just as in the case of Belarus, will send its observers to these elections.

As to economic interaction, I want to inform you that at the conclusion of the multiformat meeting, the representatives of four countries - Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Russia - gathered for a quadripartite meeting and agreed on cooperation in the energy field, primarily in the gas sector. This involves pooling the efforts of our states in this direction, the more so as countries like Russia and Turkmenistan are major producers, and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are willing to provide their transportation systems. This cooperation will be directed, without doubt, to supplying the energy requirements of all the Commonwealth countries, of our European partners and partners in world markets, including Asian.

We surely will continue this theme also with other colleagues. Undoubtedly, we will discuss this theme in a bilateral format with the President of Ukraine. We have some good progress in this direction, for all the difficulties in these questions there is movement forward, positive movement, and the Ukrainian colleagues and we will consider this problem, building cooperation in the context of our common obligations to our partners in other countries.

To sum up, I think we can all be satisfied with this work. I want once again to thank the President of Kazakhstan for the conditions which he created for us all, for the achievement of these results.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Question: How do you see Russian-Georgian relations in the light of the American presence in the region?

President Putin: We spoke on this theme, including with Eduard Shevardnadze. We are all grateful that he came here today, despite the acute political situation in the country, including in the wake of the death of the secretary of the Security Council. None the less, the Georgian President is here, and this is a very good, positive factor which enables us to clarify certain aspects of our interaction, including in the fight against terrorism. We highly assess cooperation with Georgia in this direction, particularly in the recent period. Since appropriate replacements were made in the leadership of the power agencies, and I said frankly about this, interaction has begun to grow much more rapidly, its quality has improved. I note not only the visits made by the power ministers to Georgia and to Russia, but also the quality of this work. This is the first point.

The second point is that each state has a right to pursue its security policy the way it deems it necessary. This right, without any exceptions, must be recognized also in Georgia's case. And Russia does recognize this right. We spoke of the fact that in the course of the international antiterrorist coalition we with our partners in Central Asia were and are now in very close contact. This does not mean that someone has to ask permission from Russia, but since the quality of this work depends on us, on the fact that the happenings in these regions reflect on our internal life, we deemed it possible to coordinate our actions.

What is happening in the internal political life of Russia with the appearance of a contingent of US servicemen in Georgia? There is no tragedy, nor can there be. Why is it permissible in Central Asia and not in Georgia? Why for Georgia some exclusions should be made? Of course not. The question is not this. The question is that in this case we knew nothing about it. And I said about that. It had been the lack of understanding of what was happening that had caused such a reaction. We had been receiving information from the American side, but from the Georgian colleagues' side it was, regrettably, late. I think that's what caused such a stormy reaction. Although I do not think that the fuss over this situation is of benefit to the cause of fighting terrorism as a whole, or to bilateral relations in particular. Of benefit is effective, mutual, persevering and purposive work which the President of Georgia and I intend to continue further, the way it has been developing in the last few months.


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