Meeting with Prime Minister of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith
Thongloun Sisoulith (via interpreter): This is your second visit to Laos. The first time you came here was for an Asia-Europe Meeting.
We have attended many meetings together; we have met quite often. The first time we met was when I was on the Laotian delegation that accompanied President Choummaly Sayasone on his official visit to Russia in October 2011. We also met in Ulaanbaatar, where I reaffirmed my invitation to visit Vientiane.
Co-chairing the ASEAN-Russia summit in Sochi was a pleasure. It was a very instructive trip for me. It turned out that Vladimir Putin and I studied in Leningrad at the same time; we were both students, and we probably walked the same streets.
I have discussed many bilateral cooperation issues with President Putin.
We cooperate in many areas, including security. We are grateful to Russia for helping us with some of our projects.
Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Prime Minister, I would like to congratulate you on how well this event, the East Asia Summit, was organised. We are impressed.
It is particularly nice that we can talk without interpreters most of the time.
We highly value our friendship with Laos, which goes back decades. I would also like to congratulate you once again on your appointment as prime minister.
We wish you success. We are resolved to strengthen our friendship and partnership relations. I hope that all of our agreements will be implemented.
