OREANDA-NEWS. Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Dmitry Medvedev: Mr President, colleagues, I warmly welcome you. We meet regularly; and this is the best guarantee for strong, durable, neighbourly and strategic Russian-Finnish cooperation.

I recall my recent visit to your country, my meeting with you and my talks with the Prime Minister. This was very interesting and productive. I hope your visit will be equally useful, and will be accompanied by business contacts and talks on all levels.

We see that we have the same weather, and so there is no need to acclimatise yourself – we can get down to work right away.

Sauli Niinisto (in Russian): Thank you very much. I’m very glad to see you, Mr Prime Minister.

(Further on, via interpreter): Thank you, Mr Prime Minister! I am very glad to be on a visit to your country. I want to thank you again for our meeting in November – we had a very fruitful talk. The climate seems to have become even warmer following our meeting in November. And I see that the relations between our countries, between our business circles, have intensified too, which is a very positive fact. I think that it is very significant that we have met in Helsinki, London and Davos. We have much in common.

Dmitry Medvedev: We do indeed.

Sauli Niinisto: Kiitos! (Thank you!)

Dmitry Medvedev: Kiitos!