FOREIGN Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. met with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Tuesday to prepare for the planned official visit and bilateral meeting of President Rodrigo Duterte and President Vladimir Putin next year.
Eying the visit may be during the Spring season, both Yasay and Lavrov also discussed the current state of bilateral relations and the prospects to enhance cooperation on broad ranges of areas, spanning the political, security, economic, cultural and people-to-people spheres.
“They both agreed to redouble efforts to conclude a number of agreements that would form part of the legal framework on which to build relations,” a statement from the DFA said.
In a recent forum, Russian Ambassador Igor Khovaev said Duterte’s official visit to Russia was made after his “productive” meeting with Putin at the sideline of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Lima, Peru.
“I am pleased to say our President made friends (with the Russian president), they (Putin and Duterte) understand each (which is a good sign for an) extremely important favorable condition in enhancing bilateral ties,” Khovaev said.
He said Duterte’s visit might be after the winter because the latter admitted he could not tolerate a very cold weather.
“Putin invited Duterte to visit Russia, a historic event with great international importance. Such visit must be well-prepared, we must prepare for bilateral issues to be tackled); we have lots of things to do,” the Russian envoy said.
During the official lunch tendered by the Russian Foreign Minister, there were discussions on regional and global issues including the priorities of the Philippine chairmanship of ASEAN in 2017, regional security architecture and UN issues.
In a joint press conference after his bilateral meeting with Lavrov, Yasay emphasized this engagement was part of the continuing effort which build on the previous visits to Russia of Philippine foreign secretaries to strengthen Philippine-Russia bilateral partnership.”
