Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão

With Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão
Photo: Kremlin.ru

Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão, Kremlin informs.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Prime Minister,

I am delighted to welcome you to Russia and to Kazan. This is your first visit to Russia, and it coincides with the celebrations marking the 35th anniversary of Russia–ASEAN relations.

I would like to congratulate Timor-Leste on becoming a full member of ASEAN. There is no doubt that it will help strengthen your country’s international standing.

Russia views Timor-Leste as a promising partner in the Asia-Pacific region. Next year, we will mark 25 years of diplomatic relations – they were established on the day your country officially proclaimed its independence. Russia made a proactive contribution to international assistance programmes for Timor-Leste, worked through the World Food Programme, and also sent its civilian and police personnel to take part in the UN Mission of Support to East Timor and the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste. We know that you played a major, important role in shaping Timor-Leste’s statehood and took an active part in Timor-Leste’s independence movement.

At this stage, our two countries have been developing constructive political dialogue, and we will do everything to further facilitate this process.

Our foreign ministries have also been in contact. The fact that a delegation from Timor-Leste took part in the firstInternational Security Forum in the Moscow Region was quite useful, and we reaffirm our commitment to further collaborate in this format in the future.

We are interested in forging partnerships across various sectors, primarily in energy, mining, and tourism. We believe that there is potential for expanding our trade, which has been rather modest so far. We would welcome Timor-Leste delegation’s more active participation in multilateral events in Russia, primarily the St Petersburg and Eastern economic forums.

Russia stands ready to expand humanitarian ties, including in science, education and personnel training. In particular, we could offer citizens from Timor-Leste an opportunity to study in Russia’s universities.

I suggest that we discuss prospects for our mutually beneficial cooperation across all these domains during this meeting.

Thank you for your attention.

Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão: Your Excellency, Mr President,

First let me say thank you for the hospitality extended to me and to my delegation during our visit to Russia. Congratulations on the successful ASEAN-Russia commemorative summit.

This is an important visit for Timor-Leste. It is the first time that I came to Russia. We have not participated in the previous commemorative summits with our ASEAN dialogue partners, but the ASEAN-Russia commemorative summit is the first time that Timor-Leste is participating as a full member of ASEAN.

Russia is a nation of great history and significance. Its history has shaped global politics, international affairs, the global economy, science, culture, war and peace. We have long followed Russia closely, because its history, and place in the world have influence far beyond its borders.

We have also, in terms of politics, had a very close relationship with the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.

Please let me begin with some history, if you allow. Your nation has a proud history of supporting the international struggle against colonialism. We know that from the CPLP countries in Africa, Portuguese colonies. Timor-Leste remembers that during our fight against occupation, the Soviet Union supported our right to self-determination in the United Nations. Today, Russia continues to maintain important relationships across the developing world.

Mr President, when I was leading a small resistance army in the mountains of Timor, we were fighting a far larger country that was supported and armed by powerful countries in the West. We knew that the Western powers have placed their strategic interests above our right to self-determination and above the lives of our people. It was more than 400,000 people during 24 years.

So, as a leader, I had to develop a strategy to organise the resistance, maintain our unity, and keep alive the dreams of our people. I turned to study the ideas and the strategies of other countries to learn about resilience, organisation, diplomacy, national survival. This includes China, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. I say this to tell something of our history and experience as a nation. Timor-Leste fought a long and painful struggle. Timor-Leste and Indonesia were once enemies. President Prabowo served as an Indonesian general in our country. He himself has spoken at ASEAN meetings about this history. He has said that we were once foes, and today we sit together as friends.

This is true. Today Timor-Leste and Indonesia are close friends, neighbours, and partners. We work together for peace, stability, and shared development. This experience of peace and reconciliation is one that we look to share with the world.

Our small nation has now become a full member of ASEAN. It is not easy – not very difficult, but not easy, also. Our accension to ASEAN was the realisation of the long-held aspiration of our people. We join ASEAN with respect for its principles, including dialogue, cooperation, mutual respect, peaceful settlement of disputes, and respect for international law.

As a new member, Timor-Leste wants to contribute to ASEAN unity and to the stability of our region.

Our meeting today is therefore important to us – not only for our bilateral relations, but also as part of our participation in the ASEAN-Russia partnership. Russia has been a long-standing dialogue partner of ASEAN, and Timor-Leste welcomes cooperation between ASEAN and Russia.

Timor-Leste is a small and young country. We are still building. We will have much to do to build our economy, because we have already been independent for 24 years, but economically we are still very, very dependent.

We will try our best to strengthen our institutions and create opportunities for our people. We therefore value cooperation partnerships that can help support our country and our region. This includes foreign investment from Russia, which would be very welcome in our country. We have the problem of lack of jobs, lack of human resources, and it was very important to us to know in this conference that Russia is open to help.

Timor-Leste is also hoping to be able to open an embassy in Moscow. We know that all other ASEAN nations have an embassy in Moscow, and now, that we are also a member, we intend to open an embassy in Russia in the future. Timor-Leste would also very much welcome Russia considering opening an embassy in Dili.

I am also aware that our respective foreign ministries have started preliminary discussions regarding a number of proposed bilateral agreements. We are currently reviewing the proposed agreements, and we expect to be able to discuss these documents in more detail with Russia shortly.

Timor-Leste supports entering into bilateral agreements with Russia to deepen cooperation and strengthen the relationship between our two countries.

Mr President, we are also concerned about the growing pressure on the international order. This includes the situation in Middle East.

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