Friday, 7 September, 2007

by Prime Minister John Howard
Parliament House Australia

Joint Press Conference with the President of the Russian Republic, Vladimir V. Putin,

PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you all to this joint news conference. The President and I have had a very lengthy discussion about bilateral relations, about world affairs. I'm delighted to welcome him as the first ever Russian Head of State or Head of Government or indeed any Head of State or Head of Government to visit, under a former constitutional iteration in Russia, ever. And that gives the visit a great importance. As well, we have just signed a new nuclear safeguards agreement which completely updates the arrangements for nuclear safeguards between our two countries. Russia is an important player in the affairs of the world, a very significant force and a very significant country of influence, not only within the European sphere, but within the Middle East and within our own part of the world. Mr President I very warmly welcome you to our country. We have long held a deep interest in Russia. We understand the extraordinary history and the extraordinary suffering over many years for many reasons of the Russian people. We respect your modern economy, your modern nation and I hope that this visit plays a significant part in furthering the good bilateral relations that exist between our two nations.

PRESIDENT PUTIN:

Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen. From the outset I'd like to thank leaders of Australia for the opportunity to hold separate meetings within the framework of APEC. This year marks, I've already told the Prime Minister about that, marks 200 years of first contact between the Russia and Australia, 150 years of our consular relations and 65 years of our diplomatic relations. The volume of our mutual beneficial ties is growing in all directions. We are cooperating quite well on the international scene, on major issues on the international agenda. We're actively working in the international organisations, the United Nations, the APEC, the summit of which will start tomorrow. Our trade is also growing in absolute figures. It is still not considerable but the rates are remarkable and they say that we have an untapped potential. Last year our trade grew by about 80 per cent. For the first half of 2007 the growth was about 40 per cent, more than 40 per cent. We have good prospect s for cooperation. The Prime Minister mentioned nuclear energy but this is not all we are interested in. Trade is growing; 25 per cent of this trade falls on agricultural products, mutual investments are growing, Russian investments bigger than the Australian ones. We have accumulated about 0.5 billion and there are 1.5 billion of Russian investments to the Australian economy. We have good prospects in hi-tech areas, including in exploring the outer space. It is a pleasure to say that our dialogue was extremely open, substantial and warm. I would like to thank the Prime Minister for this atmosphere. Thank you for your attention.

PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:

Two questions from each of the media groups, first of all, could we have a question from the Russian press?

JOURNALIST:

My question is to the two leaders, Vladimir Putin, how do you assess the cooperation of Australia and Russia in the nuclear area, including given the signed agreement? In Australian press there are claims that Russia will use this for nuclear weapons, how do you...what is your attitude Prime Minister to these assessments?

PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:

Well my attitude to these assessments is that they are wrong, that any uranium that is sold to Russia will be sold subject to very strict safeguards and the President in our discussion made the point that I think is relevant, that Russia already has an enormous amount of military nuclear material which it is selling principally to the United States for reprocessing. So if you apply logic to the allegation, it lacks substance.

PRESIDENT PUTIN:

On our cooperation on nuclear energy, I think it is a promising cooperation, we can work on a bilateral basis, on a multilateral basis, given our proposal on setting up international centres on enrichment. We have all the necessary technologies for this, we have raw materials and as you know Australia is country number one in terms of reserves, 40 per cent of reserves are in Australia. In Russia, to implement military programs the existing materials are sufficient, moreover the volume of materials which we regard as weapons grade is excessive. For many years we have bought this enriched uranium to the United States where it is being reprocessed and we sell it to the North American market. Just for you to understand, I can say that to produce one nuclear weapon about 20 per cent of enriched uranium is needed. We sell 30 tonnes per year in the United States and the overall volume amounts to 500 tonnes. Those who say about the opportunity to use...that Russia will use Australian uranium for military purposes, they simply do not understand or they give this thesis on purpose to impede the cooperation of two countries.

JOURNALIST:

Mr President Andrew Probyn from The West Australian newspaper, my question also goes to uranium and another matter. What assurances can you give that Australian uranium sold to Russia would not be used for military purposes or on-sold to third countries, such as Iran? And secondly there are concerns of a regional arms build up, fuelled by your arms deal, your recent, very recent arms deal with Indonesia. What's your response to those concerns?

PRESIDENT PUTIN:

I'll start with the last one. Indonesia is a fully fledged member of the international community, thank god the country is under no sanctions, therefore purchase and selling of weapons on international markets cannot be restricted through cooperation between Indonesia and Russia in this area. These are legal and open transactions and they lead to no negative consequences in the world, they do not somehow disturb any balance. And now on weapons grade uranium, I have already answered this question, you can use this answer; we need to sell 500 tonnes with our American partners on the North American market, 500 tonnes of weapon grade uranium from Russia. Why should we spend money on Australian uranium? In terms of Australian uranium we will buy it only given our plans to develop peaceful nuclear energy. In the soviet era we built about 30 big power units on the nuclear power plants of the Russian Federation. In 15, 20 years we're planning to build the same amount. And for these p urposes, only for these purposes, we need this Australia uranium. If we have a need to sell uranium to other countries, our resources, our own resources are sufficient.

JOURNALIST:

Thank you. My question to the Prime Minister of Australia, how can you evaluate the participation of Russia in APEC and the possibility that the summit of APEC in 2012 will be held in Russia? Do you think that Russia is ready to take up this presidency? Thank you?

PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:

Well I evaluate Russia's participation in APEC very positively. Russia has been a member of APEC for a number of years now and I have attended every APEC meeting during the Russian period of membership and it's been extremely positive. And I have no doubt that the Russians would be very gracious, convivial, entertaining and enjoyable hosts and I think it would be a great APEC meeting, particularly if it were held in St. Petersburg.

PRESIDENT PUTIN:

Of course if our colleagues and APEC partners give us the honour to hold the Presidency in APEC in 2012 we'll do our best to do it in the proper way. Of course we'll take into account the needs of our partners. We can hold a meeting in any city of the Russian Federation, but we want to hold it in the Asian part of Russia, for instance in Vladivostok, this is the part of Russia which organically makes part of the Asian region. There are a lot of resources there which our APEC partners really need, therefore their coming to this part of Russia will be a symbolic one and the right one, and will serve the development of our business ties.

JOURNALIST:

Thank you Mark Kenny, the Adelaide Advertiser, my question is to Prime Minister Howard. Prime Minister you're here hosting some of the world's most powerful leaders, yet there's some talk amongst some of your most ardent supporters now that you should stand down in the interests in your party. I'm just wondering how you respond to those...to that talk and to those considerations?

PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:

By referring you to the answer I gave two days ago. Okay thank you.