OREANDA-NEWS.  Vladimir Putin met at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence with President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas, who is in Russia on a working visit.

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: I am very happy to see you.

Relations between Russia and Palestine rest on a historically strong foundation. We constantly maintain political contacts on the Palestinian issue and the situation in the region as a whole; we work together on the international arena. As you and I said on numerous occasions, we still need to develop our trade and economic relations.

I am very happy to welcome you here and to be able to discuss our bilateral relations and a broad range of international issues with you.

Welcome!

PRESIDENT OF THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL AUTHORITY MAHMOUD ABBAS (translated from Russian): Your Excellency, I am as always happy to be in Moscow. I am grateful for the opportunity to exchange views on the most acute regional issues and on our bilateral relations.

True, there is a lot we need to discuss. As you have mentioned, we should exchange views on bilateral relations in the economy. You and I would like to map a path for their further development. Besides, there is a whole range of political issues, primarily the peace process in the Middle East.

We are happy to observe the economic and political success of the Russian Federation these days, the political influence your country enjoys on the international arena, above all within the contexts of the Geneva I and Geneva II developments, the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons and agreements on the Iranian nuclear program. We are happy to see that Russia is an active and influential power on the international arena.

For a number of reasons we would also like to see Russia playing the leading role in establishing peace in the Middle East. Primarily this is because Russia is a great nation, because it is a member of the International Quartet of mediators on the Middle East settlement, because Russia is a friendly nation and, finally, because Russia has its own national interests in this region. Therefore, we would like to see Russia playing the leading role here.

We are also fully confident that the role of Russia is relevant with regard to a number of Arab states that are currently going through a crisis.