MOSCOW, Jan 18 (KUNA) -- President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and the Qatari Amir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani held on Monday summit talks where they expressed a shared desire to strengthen the bilateral ties in all domains.
The two sides agreed to deepen and diversify the economic cooperation, especially in energy and investment, and to raise the level of relations to that of strategic partnership, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said following the talks.
"To solve common problems in the energy sector, Putin and (the Amir) Al Thani agreed to use both bilateral and multilateral channels of cooperation, including the cooperation with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the non-OPEC oil exporters as well as the Gas Exporting Countries Forum," TASS news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.
The two sides agreed that the joint commission on economic and commercial cooperation should meet regularly with participation of representatives of the business and financial sectors in order to take the investment cooperation to a higher level, he pointed out.
The talks led to the signing of agreements on cultural cooperation and visa waiver for diplomats of both countries, the Russian minister added.
On his part, Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah said the two countries "are unanimous in their desire to achieve stability in the energy markets," through dialogue between producers and consumers of hydrocarbon products.
"Dialogue is of crucial importance to reverse the current downward trend in the oil and gas prices," he stressed. The summit talks highlighted the need to further strengthen cooperation with regard to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) trade, and the necessary to increase the LNG share in trade, he said, pointing to the LNG role in curbing the global warming. "The leaders of Russia and Qatar have confirmed their desire to pursue the objectives for whose sake the Gas Exporting Countries Forum has been established," Qatar's top diplomat added. (pickup previous) as.gb