Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, on a working visit to Tashkent, had a talk with Uzbek President Islam Karimov
Islam Karimov's opening remarks:
Islam Karimov: I am very glad to welcome you to Tashkent. We have long been looking forward to your visit to Uzbekistan. I would like to sincerely thank you for coming in spite of your challenging and very complicated schedule. We are sincerely glad that our meeting was held today.
We had a substantive talk with you yesterday. We attach great significance to your visit to Tashkent and we see your visit above all as an excellent opportunity for exchanging opinions on important issues of bilateral and multi-lateral relations that are of interest to both sides, above all on the topical and pressing issues that face us today. We have our own opinions on all these issues. We are ready not only to discuss them together with you, but to clearly reiterate our position on the whole range of issues.
We have a chance to discuss, as you put it yesterday, a grand programme of issues and problems that need to be addressed. They are above all economic issues and issues connected with export.
Bilateral relations have been given a new impetus and new opportunities. Speaking about opportunities, they are unlimited. Let us face it: whatever sphere we take - energy, the use of minerals and raw materials, deliveries, sale and transportation of gas - all these are issues for the medium and long term.
I understand that Russia is interested in all these issues. Uzbekistan is open to discussing them and to making decisions. That definitely is in the interests of both Russia and Uzbekistan.
Of course, there are many questions. Uzbekistan has vast mineral and raw material resources. From that point of view working out a long-term perspective is in our mutual interests. We are open to Russian capital and Russian business. Speaking about the cultural and enlightenment sphere, the sphere of education and health, we are deeply convinced that relations in these spheres are of great interest, at least for Uzbekistan.
In the sphere of cultural communication we have always appreciated its benefits for the development of Uzbekistan. Today educational processes are marked by growing integration. Three major Russian higher education institutions have opened branches in Tashkent. I hear that Turkmenistan has followed our example. There too, branches of Russian higher education institutions are opening. The Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Oil and Gas Institute and the Plekhanov Academy are opening branches.
I do not see any issues on which we diverge or have different positions. Naturally, we should work out a programme of action on these matters and they should remain at the focus of our attention.
I am aware that in the morning you had a thorough exchange of opinions at the government level. You discussed important, fundamental issues of concern to Russia and Uzbekistan. From what my colleagues have said I understand that the Russian side was satisfied with this exchange of opinions and that the prospects opening up before us are very important.
I hope that Russia feels the same way regarding our prospects. Russia has always been and remains the priority partner for us. We have a Treaty On Strategic and Allied Relations, which, in my opinion is already being invested with concrete meaning and content. I take advantage of this meeting to tell you that there is a broad field of activity because the document provides a large-scale framework for our relations. Filling it with concrete content is the task both of the Uzbek and the Russian sides.
On the whole I think that the meeting today was a meeting of friends. I want the media representatives of take note of that. I think that my attitude to Vladimir Putin is known to many Russians, and I would like to say that my respect has been building up over many years. Back in 2000 I said that he is the man with whom I would go on a reconnaissance mission together. I am still of that opinion.
Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:
Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much for your kind words. Thank you for your invitation. I am particularly glad that I have come to Uzbekistan on your national holiday, Independence Day. I managed to take part in some of the celebrations together with you.
I would certainly agree with you that our relations have a strategic character not only on paper, but also in substance, in real life. I am referring to the coordination of our political agenda and matters of economic development.
Today, together with my opposite number, the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, we noted that trade between our countries has increased by 10 times in less than seven years. It has been growing rapidly in recent years too. Our statistics put it at $3 billion. According to Uzbek statistics, it is almost $4 billion, that is, about a third of Uzbekistan's trade with all countries. That is a very impressive indicator.
But of course this is not the limit. We have much greater opportunities. As you have rightly noted this concerns above all the extraction of minerals and high technology spheres. We signed a document on the development of our relations in space exploration today.
We have very good prospects for joint work not only in the production of hydrocarbons, but also in nuclear energy. We very much hope that we will not only restore our former relations that existed between economic entities in that sphere in Soviet times, but will move further.
Transport issues are of interest both to Uzbekistan and to Russia. I mean moving your traditional exports not only to Russia, but to third countries across our territory, supplies of fruit and vegetables, aviation. We expect that we will manage to implement the project of integrating the Tashkent Aviation Enterprise into the Russian Aircraft-Building Corporation. In general, there are many areas for joint work.
You have also mentioned agreements on the development of pipelines. I hope we will have time to discuss them because during our talk with colleagues today we agreed on how to proceed in the framework of our former plans. Nonetheless we would of course like to hear a confirmation of the commitment to implement our plans from you as the country's President. I must say that this is important both for our country, Russia, and for Uzbekistan in connection with the increasing volume of production, and also for Uzbekistan's neighbours, Turkmenistan, and for our consumers, including those in Western Europe.
I hope and I have no doubt that our talk today will be as productive, as open and fruitful as our previous talks. Thank you very much.
Islam Karimov's closing remarks:
Islam Karimov: As you may have guessed you have been invited because several questions have cropped up during our talk with Vladimir Putin and the Russian delegation. I should say that it is essential for the mass media to be informed about the results of our discussion of these issues. There is a need to get this information across to all those concerned.
I am referring first and foremost to s problem that has long been a subject of speculation at the informal level. There is a sense that the transportation of energy resources, in the first place hydrocarbons and gas, from the territory of Central Asia - Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - has run into certain problems. But the discussion today has convinced us that the issue has been overblown and is being played up in the interests of those circles and those centres that would like to create a sensation around it. Those who perhaps want to use that agitation to pursue their strategic goals by creating ever new gas transportation projects. You will have heard about these projects and I do not need to dwell on them.
Speaking about concrete figures, gas is delivered from Turkmenistan via the territory of Uzbekistan and via the territory of Kazakhstan before it reaches Russia. The pipelines built during the Soviet period - CAC-1 and CAC-2, I mean the Central Asia-Centre and Central Asia-Bukhara pipelines (CAC-2 complements CAC-1); the total capacity of that pipeline on Uzbekistan territory today is about 54 billion cubic metres. The question being discussed today is how that pipeline will be able to handle dramatically increased gas supplies. Framework agreements to the effect have already been signed between Russia and the Central Asian states.
I would like to take advantage of our meeting today to tell you about the conclusions that we have reached. Considering the growing gas supplies we have become convinced that along with CAC-1 and CAC-2 it is necessary to build a new pipeline with a capacity of 26-30 billion cubic metres. That is, with an eye to the growing extraction of gas both in Turkmenistan and in Uzbekistan.
There is some talk and speculation to the effect that Uzbekistan objects to the pipeline being built on our territory. Today I made an unequivocal statement to the effect that this is not our attitude. We are ready to offer our territory for the construction of the pipeline. We are interested in it, above all in commercial terms, above all in terms of meeting our allied obligations to Russia.
I see this as the logical position both of Russia and Uzbekistan. I hope that to a degree it would provide a good impulse for Turkmenistan so that it could be confident that all the gas it is ready to supply to the north, to Russia, will be delivered. Uzbekistan has never stood in the way. Uzbekistan has never created any problems and will not create any problems in that area. The pipeline can be laid, but it depends on the concrete plans of the states concerned, the states which will implement the project.
That, briefly, is what I wanted to say. Perhaps Mr Putin would like to add something.
Vladimir Putin's closing remarks:
Vladimir Putin: I would like to make several points that I consider to be very important as a result of our talk today with the President of Uzbekistan.
First of all I subscribe to his idea that it is necessary to expand our investment cooperation. It must be a two-way street. There are prerequisites for that.
Second. We have agreed to expand military-technical cooperation in the field of the latest weapons and develop cooperation in this and several other hi-tech spheres.
Finally, energy. The first thing I would like to note and consider to be extremely important is that our gas trade specialists have practically worked out a common gas price formula, a European formula of price formation.
And finally, as Mr Karimov has just said, an agreement has been reached to start joint work to build a new gas pipeline across the territory of Uzbekistan to tap the growing export potential of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan itself.
We see that the potential of our partners is growing and it is in our common interest to put that infrastructure project into practice.
I would like to thank the President of Uzbekistan for his constructive approach. I am sure that our plans will be brought to fruition.
Islam Karimov: Thank you.
