OREANDA-NEWS. June 19, 2012. Participants in the meeting from the Russian side included Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak. Participants from the American side included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, American Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and Senior Director for Russian Affairs Alice Wells.

Following the meeting, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama made a joint statement.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Mr President, this is our second meeting. I recall our lengthy conversation in Moscow. Today, our conversation was very substantive and concrete. We were able to discuss security matters, as well as bilateral economic relations. In this regard, I would like to thank you for supporting Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation. I am certain that this will promote the development of economic ties between Russia and the United States and aid in the creation of new jobs in both nations.

We also discussed international issues, including Syria. I feel that we found a great deal of common ground on these issues. We will continue our contacts – both personal and at the expert and ministerial level.

You visited the Russian Federation three years ago. I am inviting you to Moscow, and we await your visit.

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BARACK OBAMA: Thank you very much, Mr President.

We, in fact, did have a candid, thoughtful and thorough conversation on a whole range of bilateral and international issues.  Over the last three years, the United States and Russia have been able to make significant progress on a wide range of issues, including the New START Treaty, the 123 Agreement, the work we've done on Russia's accession to the WTO, and setting up a presidential process whereby issues of trade and commerce, science, technology are all discussed at a much more intensive level.

We agreed that we need to build on these successes, even as we recognise that there are going to be areas of disagreement, and that we can find constructive ways to manage through any bilateral tensions. In particular, we discussed the need to expand trade and commercial ties between the United States and Russia, which are still far below where they should be.  And I emphasised my priority of having Congress repeal Jackson-Vanik, provide permanent trade relations status to Russia so that American businesses can take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities now that Russia is a member of the WTO.

We discussed a range of strategic issues, including missile defence, and resolved to continue to work through some of the difficult problems involved there.

I thanked the President and the Russian people for the work they’ve done with us on the Northern Distribution Network that is vital to providing supplies and resources to our brave troops who are still in Afghanistan.

We emphasised our shared approach when it comes to the Iranian situation as members of the P5+1.  We agreed that there’s still time and space to resolve diplomatically the issue of Iran’s potential development of nuclear weapons, as well as its interest in developing peaceful nuclear power.

And finally, as Mr President mentioned, we discussed Syria, where we agreed that we need to see a cessation of the violence, that a political process has to be created to prevent civil war, and the kind of horrific events that we’ve seen over the last several weeks, and we pledged to work with other international actors including the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and all the interested parties in trying to find a resolution to this problem.

Mr President, I look forward to visiting Russia again, and I look forward to hosting you in the United States.

Thank you, everybody.