VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Mr Secretary General, I can’t tell you how good it feels to meet a countryman so far away from home. You are a countryman in the sense that you studied in St Petersburg and recently received an honorary doctorate from the Bonch-Bruyevich Institute. Congratulations!
Hamadoun Toure: Thank you!
Vladimir Putin: The International Telecommunication Union is one of the oldest international organisations; it’s twice as old as the United Nations. Russia was one of its co-founders and intends to be an active member. We are thankful to you for the ideas that you have proposed for discussion. One of them is establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
If we are going to talk about the democratisation of international relations, I think a critical sphere is information exchange and global control over such exchange. This is certainly a priority on the international agenda. There are many practical cooperation issues to discuss, and I am very pleased to have an opportunity to meet with you.
Hamadoun Toure: Thank you, Your Excellency! You are right, being a graduate of the Bonch-Bruyevich Institute, I consider myself a resident of St Petersburg and a representative of the Russian Federation at the ITU.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you.
Hamadoun Toure: As you mentioned, Russia co-founded the ITU almost 150 years ago. We marked the ITU’s 146th anniversary in May.
We highly appreciate Russia’s scientific contribution to the international community, especially in the area of communications, including the launching of the first space satellite and the first manned space flight by Yury Gagarin 50 years ago.
We are also deeply thankful to Russia for its ITU activities. Russia supported the ITU in adopting many important political and technical decisions that help us achieve our mandate to connect people. With your support, the ITU effectively promotes information and communication technologies and makes real socioeconomic progress. We are honoured to have this opportunity to meet with His Excellency Prime Minister Putin today. This meeting makes us even more confident about the further strengthening of cooperation between Russia and the International Telecommunication Union.
