Kremlin

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Moscow, the Kremlin | April 5, 2004
Meeting with members of Government

Vladimir Putin: Andrei Alexandrovich (speaking to Andrei Fursenko), a world programming championship was held in Prague, and as far as I understand, the results were very respectable, weren’t they? Please tell us.

Andrei Fursenko: The world championship was held for the 28th time. Initially, over 3,000 teams from 75 countries took part. There were 73 teams from 31 countries in the final. The U.S. had the most finalist teams (20), and Russia had eight. The absolute champion was the team from the St. Petersburg State University of Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics. They gained an absolute result – they solved all seven tasks. Even more importantly, in my opinion, a team from Perm came 4th, and the Udmurt State Technical University came 8th. I think Harvard was 9th.

Vladimir Putin: People who study at Harvard should now move to Perm…

Andrei Fursenko: As soon as possible.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, as soon as possible.

Andrei Fursenko: Vladimir Vladimirovich, last time a Polish team won, and they were received by President Kwasniewski. I don’t know, perhaps…

Vladimir Putin: We won’t send them to Kwasniewski. I will be happy to receive them in the Kremlin.

Sergei Viktorovich (speaking to Sergei Lavrov), you were in Brussels at the Russia-NATO Council. Please tell us a few words about this.

Sergei Lavrov: Firstly, the meeting of the Russia-NATO Council was held in expanded format, as all seven new NATO members took part, and it was very important, as you instructed us, to ensure that our partnership with NATO develops, but develops in such a way that our security interests do not suffer. And one specific result we were able to achieve will help this. The result is that the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), which has not yet come into effect, was ratified by everyone as a cornerstone of European security. And four of the seven new NATO member countries which are not yet members of this treaty pledged to join it as soon as it came into effect, and it will be ratified by all the others. The NATO members, including the General Secretary who will soon come to Moscow, confirmed that the rule of military restraint applies to all newcomers. This is an important political and legal document, and we also made record of it with an exchange of letters.

Vladimir Putin: Here is the political declaration on the new NATO members joining the CFE Treaty. Please comment on this.

Sergei Lavrov. The NATO General Secretary said that countries not part of the CFE Treaty would become members of the treaty after it comes into effect, and ministers of each of these four countries confirmed this at the meeting.

Vladimir Putin: You mean they stated this, they expressed the position of their countries?

Sergei Lavrov: Clearly and without ambiguity.

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