OREANDA-NEWS. Talks took place on October 21 between Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Tunisia Abdelwaheb Abdallah, who was on a working visit to Moscow.

The overview of a broad range of issues in bilateral relations and those of the international and regional agenda has shown a high degree of mutual understanding.

There was reaffirmed the commonality of Russia and Tunisia’s vision of the main world trends, including through the prism of the new global challenges and threats, among which some of the most dangerous are international terrorism and religious extremism. A mutual commitment was reaffirmed to the basic principles for creating an equitable world – the primacy of international legality, the central role of the UN and its Security Council, and negotiation methods for resolving crisis situations on a collective basis. Both sides expressed the readiness to deepen their foreign policy coordination.

Russia and Tunisia spoke for improving the situation in the Middle East and for achieving a comprehensive Middle East settlement. In this context they accentuated the vital importance of advancing the peace process on all its negotiation tracks, the relevance of the role of the Quartet of international mediators in cooperation with the region’s countries in this respect and the necessity of restoring Palestinian unity. There was expressed the common view that the route to normalization in Iraq runs through the achievement of national consensus by dialogue with the participation of all representative forces of the country and with support from its neighbors and other partners. The ministers spoke for removing concerns around the Iranian nuclear program by political methods with the observance of the right of Teheran to enjoy the benefits of the peaceful atom.

Certain aspects of the situation in the Maghreb, on the African continent, in the Mediterranean and in the Caucasus also were touched upon. A high assessment was given of the state of the Russian-Tunisian political dialogue and ties in various fields and the mutual interest was expressed in the intensification of contacts at different levels and in the diversification of forms and areas of partnership. The sides deemed it necessary to use more fully the potential of the Russian-Tunisian Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Commercial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation, of which the third meeting was held in Tunis this past May, as well as to engage more actively the business communities of the two countries in the format of the Russian-Tunisian Business Council. The sides agreed to continue work on perfecting the juridical support of bilateral ties, in whose framework an intergovernmental Program of Cultural and Scientific Cooperation for a three-year period was signed in the current year.