OREANDA-NEWS. July 04, 2011. The NATO-Russia Council meeting’s results were the main subject of discussion, including cooperation on missile defence, and achieving a settlement in the Libyan crisis.

President of South Africa Jacob Zuma also took part in the meeting.

Earlier in the day, Mr Medvedev had a discussion with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Mr Secretary General, Permanent representatives of the countries on the NATO- Russia Council, I want to start by welcoming you all to Sochi. This is the first time that Sochi is hosting a meeting of the NATO- Russia Council, and I hope it will provide the right atmosphere. The weather is good, and our relations should be sunny too.

I think we are all happy with the overall results achieved. I have been told that the NATO- Russia Council meeting that just ended was overall quite productive, and I hope we have made progress on the issues that both Russia and the NATO countries have on their agendas at the moment.

Of course, the Lisbon summit last November opened a unique window of opportunity. The decisions made on that occasion were, overall, very positive indeed in our view, because it is precisely these sorts of decisions that give us the base we need for building a strategic partnership on the principles of indivisible security, mutual trust, transparency, and predictability. This will boost global security and it is in the interests and hopes of everyone in our countries.

At its Lisbon summit, NATO approved its new strategic concept, which emphasises the development of partnership relations with other countries and organisations around the world. We think this is important in order to build a more solid, stable, and secure world. We discussed just now with President Zuma one of the complicated issues before us at the moment – the situation in Libya. I think this is precisely the kind of situation in which we can make efforts together to achieve results and work as partners to discuss the most difficult questions and look for solutions.