Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Dmitry Medvedev with Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al-Abadi

Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Prime Minister, distinguished Iraqi colleagues, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Russia. This is your first visit, and I hope it will be fruitful. It is evidence of the Iraqi leadership’s resolve to continue to develop multifaceted cooperation with Russia. We value our friendly relations with Iraq, which have been growing despite the dramatic events of the past few years and the difficulties which the Iraqi people faced and are still facing. We are happy to continue cooperation at the government level and to strengthen the growing ties between our parliaments and business people under the auspices of Business Councils. I wish you and your team success, and I hope that this visit will help to further develop our relations.

Haider al-Abadi (via interpreter): Thank you, Mr Medvedev. I’d like to thank you for this warm welcome on behalf of our delegation and myself. We certainly greatly appreciate our relations with Russia. We view them as promising, and I think that this visit is direct evidence of that. We have come to Russia in spite of some forces’ recommendations against doing so. However, we are set to continue to develop our ties in all areas, including military-technical cooperation, economic cooperation and cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

Mr Prime Minister, please allow me to use this opportunity to congratulate you on the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, victory over fascism and Nazism.

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