At today’s Post-Ministerial Conferences (PMCs) of the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, Laos, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and China Foreign Minister Wang Yi met privately, during which they reviewed progress on agreements signed during the May 16-17 Beijing summit between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, as well as cooperation within ASEAN. These have been extremely important, the ministers said, “at a time when the international system has to grapple with a lot of turbulence and uncertainty.”
In his opening remarks at the meeting, Lavrov emphasized that both countries have made a comprehensive effort to deliver on their national development goals and that “the Russia-China strategic cooperation is designed to facilitate those efforts.” Bilateral relations are of extreme importance to both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, he said, and they are always exploring new horizons “for our strategic partnership.”
