PRESIDENT OF MONGOLIA ADDRESSES EXTENDED SESSION OF III EASTERN ECONOMIC FORUM
On September 7, President of Mongolia Khaltmaagiin Battulga gave a speech to the Extended Session of the Eastern Economic Forum.
President Battulga along with the President of the Russian Federation V.Putin, President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jae-in, and Prime Minister of Japan participated in the session as keynote speakers.
In the beginning of his speech, the President of Mongolia greeted his fellow keynote speakers. “Our travel from Mongolia to Vladivostok was quite short. What I mean to say is that the Far East is indeed “near” East for Mongolians. I wanted to study this place and see the ports for myself. At last, I had a chance to see Vostochny Port with the company of Russian Minister of Tranport M.Sokolov and President of Russian Railways JSC O.Belozerov. My impression was great.
Mongolia is a landlocked country. Gaining access to the seas and discovering an opportunity to export and trade our commodities on global prices is my dream. One of my main goals of coming here was to secure discount for transit transport when carrying good through the Russian territory. I see that I almost achieved this goal.
I went after this goal for many years. I wish to extend my gratitude once again to Mr. Putin and other officials who helped prepare the transit agreement.
Yesterday, we met Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe and discussed the ways to cooperate in the Far Eastern region. We also talked about the issue in the Korean Peninsula. Our conversation came to a conclusion that we need to leave a space for negotiations and dialogues rather than trying to ‘settle’ things with sanctions. We thank you for this discussion.
I would also like to thank Mr. Moon Jae-in who has been recently elected the head of state as I have been myself. We conversed about the Mongolian laborers in the Republic of Korea. Our view that security in the Korean peninsula canoly be achieved by dialogue has intersected”.
The President ended his speech by extending gratitude to the guests of EEF and wished them success.
The session completed in friendly atmosphere.
Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe said, during his address to the extended session, “Ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, President Putin has a black belt in judo, and in fact, I want to say that President Battulga also has a black belt”.
“Think about it”, the Prime Minister of Japan instructed the Olympic judo champion Yasuhiro Yamashita a, also present in the room.
“Mr. Yamashita, I have a proposition for you, which I cannot do. What if you can’t invite a line of Japanese Federation of judo black belts that we have just said, the two presidents, in Japan? And then you could have a show match with the presidents. What do you think? It would be interesting, isn’t it?”, Abe said.