OREANDA-NEWS.  After the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting, Vladimir Putin met with President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed prospects for the development of bilateral relations in trade, economy and the humanitarian area. The President of Russia stressed the need to expand cooperation in high-tech areas.

President Putin once again congratulated Nursultan Nazarbayev on the signing of the Agreement on the Eurasian Economic Union.

After their meeting, the two presidents attended the signing of a number of documents, including those on the supply of oil and petroleum products, the use of subsoil resources at the Kharasan-1, Akdala and South Inkai fields, and cooperation in alternative energy and rare and rare-earth metals mining.

The parties also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan and the Comprehensive Development Program for Russian-Kazakh cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear power.

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PRESIDENT OF KAZAKHSTAN NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV: Mr Putin, I would like to congratulate all of us once again on the signing of a very important document. It took us many years of hard work and arguments to achieve this. I hope it will all be for the good of our states and peoples. Now we need to work on it.

I am happy that you found the opportunity in these troubled times to come here to discuss these issues. I wish you success in all your endeavours.

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Thank you very much.

I would like to congratulate you once again as well. As I have said on many occasions, and find it possible to repeat that I believe that largely this is your success, your triumph. A long time has passed from the appearance of the idea to its implementation, and a great number of organisational and intellectual moves were carried out to make this possible.

We have reached our goal. There is of course a lot of work ahead to make use of the advantages that the new integration union undoubtedly gives us.

As for bilateral relations, they are developing very well; trade turnover is growing, humanitarian ties are expanding, and we are very happy with this, we also have good prospects and plans. I agree with you that we need to pay more attention to cooperation in high-tech areas. This is of great importance, just as important as creating new skill sets both in Russia and in Kazakhstan using what we already have. We have every reason to believe that we will be successful in this area as well.