OREANDA-NEWS. Following their talks, Mr Putin and Mr Singh adopted a joint declaration, Deepening the Strategic Partnership for Global Peace and Stability. The two leaders also oversaw the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation agreements.

The documents signed include an agreement on transfer of people sentenced to prison terms, a memorandum of understanding between the Russian Energy Agency, the Russian Energy Ministry, and India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency, a memorandum of understanding between Russia’s Federal Agency on Technical Regulation and Metrology and the Bureau of Indian Standards, a science and technology cooperation programme for 2014-2017, and a biotechnology cooperation programme for 2014-2017.

Mr Putin and Mr Singh made press statements following the talks.  

Mr Singh is in Russia on an official visit at Mr Putin’s invitation.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Mr Prime Minister, friends,

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to Russia.

India is our longstanding and reliable strategic partner and ally. Much of what has been achieved over recent years, Mr Prime Minister, was accomplished under your direct leadership and with your personal involvement, and we are certainly very grateful to you for this.
We are actively developing our economic ties. We are happy to see the amount of trade we have, though it can and should be even bigger. But most pleasing of all is the quality of our trade, in which products with high added value account for a big share. We are working together in a very broad range of sectors, in practically all areas.

We are developing our cooperation in the military technical and defence sectors. Indeed, the latest Russian-Indian anti-terrorism exercises are underway right at the moment in India.

We are working together on political matters too and are actively involved in work in the UN and the BRICS group.

We are very pleased to have this chance to see you here, Mr Prime Minister, and to welcome you and your delegation to Russia. I wish you welcome.

PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA MANMOHAN SINGH: Mr President, thank you for your generous hospitality and for your kind remarks. I am very pleased to be back in Moscow for the 14th India-Russia Annual Summit.

Mr President, you have been instrumental in promoting and strengthening our partnership for more than a decade, and we are grateful to you for your sustained personal interest and commitment.

Mr President, India’s relations with the Russian Federation occupy a very special place in our foreign policy. We cherish our true and time-tested friendship with Russia, which has remained strong and relevant despite the changes in the world at large. The level of trust and confidence that we have in our relations with Russia is unmatched by any other relationship. I would like to reaffirm that our relations with Russia will remain a high strategic priority for us and will continue to grow not only bilaterally but also on global and regional issues.

Mr President, I am very happy that good and sustained progress is taking place in defence, energy, science and technology, as well as tourism, trade and investment. Our coordination in multilateral foras has also deepened, such as BRICS, Group of 20, and the East Asia Summit. Ours is truly a special and privileged strategic partnership, to which, Mr President, you have contributed enormously in this last decade.