Lavrov, Pranab discuss Putin-Manmohan summit in Moscow

Moscow, Oct 24 (UNI) External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov today discussed the ongoing preparations for the November summit between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Moscow.

''The sides discussed current preparations for the coming Indo-Russian summit and the Year of Russia in India in 2008,'' Russian Foreign Ministry stated today.

Both the sides expressed their desire to pursue constructive cooperation to promote strategic partnership between the two nations for the stability and safety in the world.

The parties discussed specific issues concerning bilateral cooperation, including energy and space.

Mr Mukherjee is currently on a visit to Harbin, Chinese Heilongjiang Province, for the third stand-alone trilateral meeting between the Russia, India and China to discuss concrete measures to step up trilateral cooperation.

The countries are expected to sign a joint communique at the end of the talks, Itar-Tass quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mikhail Kamynin as saying.

''The document would fix the general vision of the international situation and would outline concrete ways for building up cooperation between the three states,'' Kamynin said.

He said the meeting of the three Foreign Ministers in Harbin would be a significant international event, adding that a dialogue conducted in this format was a significant political factor in the contemporary world.

UNI