Д.Медведев.Выступление на встрече.23.06.09.Part 1

Speech at Meeting of the Permanent Representatives of the League of Arab States.Part 1
June 23, 2009
Cairo

Выступление на встрече с постоянными представителями стран членов Лиги арабских государств.
23 июня 2009 года
Каир

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Mr Secretary-General,

Permanent representatives and ambassadors,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to speak here from the tribune of the League of Arab States. This is my first visit to this influential organisations headquarters. As an organisation uniting the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, with their shared history, the League of Arab States plays an important part today in global and regional politics, the economy and finance. There can be no progress on many of the issues facing the world today, such as security, sustainable development, promotion of dialogue between civilisations, and settling religious conflicts, without taking into consideration the organisations position and the views of its member states. And the same applies, of course, to our efforts to successfully overcome the problems brought on by the global financial and economic crisis.

The objective reality is such that when global mechanisms are not in balance, regional and sub-regional groupings take on much greater importance. Many parts of the world, including the Middle East, are undergoing a very rapid regionalisation process. Countries are taking on responsibility not just for solving their own problems but also for looking for regional solutions to todays global challenges. A very clear example in this respect was the recent summits of two young organisations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRIC Group, in Yekaterinburg, on the border between Europe and Asia.

Longstanding traditions of friendship and respect bind Russia and the Arab world together. This visit has given me the chance to see once again just how deeply historical memory has taken root among our friends in the Middle East. People here have not forgotten the time when our country provided all-round support to help get the countries of this region on their feet. It was back then, during the decolonisation period, that we laid the foundations for building a fairer and more modern world order.

We in the Russian Federation have not forgotten how, during the difficult times our country traversed in the 1990s, the Arab world spoke its support for our territorial integrity. We seek to continue building on these traditions of cooperation and to keep developing our ties with your organisations member states.

Our relations have a very solid foundation. Total trade turnover between Russia and the countries in the League of Arab States comes to almost 10 billion USD. This is a decent figure, but our cooperation potential is much, much higher. It is extremely important now to develop our investment ties, expand our relations in the energy sector and increase the number of joint projects. We hope that the Declaration of Intent on establishing a Russian-Arab cooperation forum that was signed today will give a big boost to this process.

Of course, we continue to place priority on our humanitarian projects too, which have developed along with our intergovernmental relations over the years. Many young people from the Middle East have studied at first Soviet and then Russian universities over these decades, and tens of thousands of mixed families have been founded. Our citizens have contributed to building and developing the regions countries, developing their industry and agriculture and strengthening their armed forces. This has gone hand-in-hand with rapid tourism growth and increasing activeness of non-governmental organisations that create real opportunities for ordinary people to have contact with each other.

We share spiritual closeness too. Russian pilgrims have been coming to the Holy Land for nigh on 1,000 years now, and millions of Muslims have been living in Russia for centuries now in peace and harmony with their neighbours the 160 peoples and ethnic groups and more than 50 different faiths that make up our country. Islam is an integral part of Russias history and culture. Respect for the faiths, customs and traditions of our peoples is at the very foundation of civic peace in our country. I can say quite frankly that Russia has no need to seek friendship with the Muslim world because our country is an organic part of this world around 20 million of our citizens are Muslims. This figure speaks for itself. It is precisely for this reason that we value our growing cooperation with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, in which we have obtained observer status with the active support of our friends.

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[Acunga]

tctct Russia Russia, dear our saviour form Turks..where and how low you could have fallen, poor country