Vladimir Putin is wrapping up his visit to Singapore. It lasted for three days. The President held negotiations with the authorities of the Republic and a few bilateral meetings with his counterparts. He's participated in two summits — the Russia-ASEAN and the East Asia Summit. Today, he held a concluding press conference, commented on the dialogue with Japan on the peace treaty, preparation for the possible meeting with Donald Trump, and elections in Ukraine.
Anastasiya Sakhovskaya has the details of all of the statements made.
Vladimir Putin's press conference has ended just recently. In the course of it, he provided answers to the most urgent questions of the Russian and global agendas. He summarized this three-day visit, which was very busy and its schedule changed at every turn.
In the morning before the beginning of the plenary session, Vladimir Putin talked to the US Vice-President Mike Pence and the National Security Advisor of the US John Bolton. Then they met again, as diplomats say, on foot on the margins. What's important, this communication wasn't planned in advance but caused a stir and drew attention. That's understandable. The press followed the communication between Putin and Trump in Paris just as closely. The president said the American unfriendly steps, of course, influence the schedule of their meetings. He provided the details of their conversations and told about the prospects of the complicated relations with the US. According to him, our countries need a dialogue both at the top and expert levels.
Vladimir Putin: "We've agreed to meet in Buenos Aires. If we'll manage to do it, we, for our part, are ready to do it. Now, Mr. Vice-President has said that the US's also preparing for this meeting. Well, we'll see what happens. Indeed, we have something to talk about. During a working lunch in Paris, the discussion was common and pretty intense. President Trump and I managed to take part in that common discussion in a quite substantial way. We discussed security issues, economic development, regional issues. Now, Mr. Vice-President and I touched upon almost the same issues. The issue of strategic stability is undoubtedly one of the key issues because we should understand what will happen to the START III, we should understand what will happen in the framework of the treaty on the intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles and how things will develop".
Here are new details of the conversation with Shinzō Abe: they talked about the possibility to conclude a peace treaty on the basis of the Soviet paper on the Kuril Islands. According to the President, the dialogue with Japan on this issue should be discussed in detail.
Vladimir Putin: “In the course of the discussion, the focus shifted, it switched from the declaration of 1956. During our meeting yesterday, the Prime Minister said that he would be ready, Japan would be ready to discuss this issue again on the basis of the declaration of 1956. Of course, this requires some separate additional elaboration. I mean that many provisions of the declaration are unclear. It just states the problem in general terms and says that the USSR is ready to transfer two islands, the southernmost islands. But it doesn't provide any grounds for this and doesn't say under what jurisdiction they will be. All of this is a subject for serious elaboration. Moreover, Japan itself once refused to carry out these agreements.”
The Kiev authorities don't want to exchange prisoners following the right formula "all for all", though it's a part of the Minsk agreements. That's what the president noted commenting on the situation in the Donbass. The elections there is the people's reaction to what's going on, and the West should condemn political assassinations there but not the voting.
Vladimir Putin: "As to condemning of these elections by anyone, we haven't heard anyone condemning the assassinations committed on the territory of those unrecognized republics. That's the thing. They should have first condemned the assassinations being committed there for political reasons. That triggered the reaction of the people living there. What did the people arranging such crimes expect? Of course, the elections were inevitable. That was my first point.
Second, to meet in the Normandy format now, during the election campaign currently taking place in Ukraine, by and large, has no sense. Actually, the current Ukrainian authorities haven't demonstrated their willingness to carry out the Minsk agreements. They do nothing to implement these agreements. Nothing's happening. Are the current authorities able to do something to settle the situation? In my opinion, they aren't. While the power in Kiev will be in the hands of such people, we can't count on a peaceful settlement in those territories. Nevertheless, we think there's no other way and we'll have to negotiate. I hope that people who'll run the country in the future, whoever they are, by the way, we'll respect the choice of the Ukrainian people, in any case, we'll work with everyone, but they'll still come to the conclusion that there's no other way but a peaceful one and that they should carry out the Minsk agreements".
Possible refusal of Russia to take part in the economic forum in Davos won't affect the position of our country in the global economy. According to the President, the organizers only harm themselves by introducing such barriers.
Vladimir Putin: "Being the vice-governor of Saint Petersburg, I often, almost every year, went to Davos. Then, working in Moscow, I did it less and less. I haven't practically been there recently. But that is a good platform. The general goal of such platforms, meetings, and discussions, which are free and impartial, is to make people closer beyond any political restrictions. If someone introduces restrictions on such platforms, they harm themselves. They destroy the basis for their work. We should keep that in mind. As to our participation, every person, representative of any company, it's representatives of business who mostly gather there, our people are free, they're entitled to make decisions whether to take part or not on their own".
Here are other key points: Europe should help restore Syria irrespective of its predilections if it doesn't want to face a new wave of refugees. Russia is satisfied with oil prices at $70 a barrel, it's even profitable. We'll continue to work in the OPEC Plus format. Here are the most important pieces of news.
Anastasiya Sakhovskaya, Alexandra Terpugova, Mikhail Artyukhin, and Mikhail Emelin for Vesti from Singapore.
