Putin welcomes Eurasian Economic Community leaders to Moscow summit

RTR Russia TV, Moscow
22 Jun 05

[Presenter] A meeting of the Eurasian Economic Community [EAEC]
interstate council opened in the Kremlin today. Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan belong to this organization, as well as
Russia. Armenia is an observer.

The council has a special role in developing integration processes in
the post-Soviet area. The leaders of the member countries are focusing
on the creation of a single economic space and collaboration between
border services. One of the organization’s main tasks, however, is its
members’ accession to the World Trade Organization.

A meeting of the EAEC leaders is under way right now.

[Putin] Colleagues, may I welcome you warmly to Moscow. We’ll begin
work in this narrow format. We’ll have time to talk about the agenda
and, off the agenda, to discuss all the issues that are of interest
from the point of view of developing the organization and, perhaps,
even bilateral relations.

Allow me to welcome you all, including Robert Sedrakovich [Kocharyan],
as an observer, as president, as head of state of an observer country,
and to hand over to the chairman of the interstate council.

[Presenter] Leader of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev was therefore
the first to take the floor. He is chairman of the EAEC interstate
council.

At the end of the meeting, the presidents will sign a number of
documents, including a blueprint for currency cooperation.

Prior to the EAEC meeting, Vladimir Putin held bilateral
meetings. With Emomali Rahmonov, the president of Tajikistan, he
discussed the successfully developing cooperation between our
countries, above all, in the economic sphere. [Passage omitted]

Meeting the president of Armenia, Vladimir Putin welcomed Robert
Kocharyan as an observer of the EAEC interstate council meeting. In
the Russian leader’s view, this will have a positive impact on
cooperation between Armenia and all the states that belong to the
organization. They also talked about bilateral relations between
Russia and Armenia.