NEW YORK, June 27 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s emergencies ministry is a dynamically developing structure which has close contacts and partner agreements with rescue services in many countries across the globe, Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov told Itar-Tass after his Wednesday meetings with top officials from the U.S. Fire Administration.
“The Russian emergencies ministry cooperates with more than 60 world nations. Thus, we have close contacts with the European Union,” he said. During his recent visit to Brussels, he noted, Puchkov signed more cooperation documents. “For instance, we develop active cooperation between our governing bodies. The ministry’s national crisis management center is cooperating with the Brussels-base office for coordination humanitarian affairs. Apart from that, our rescue forces and services are cooperating on a permanent basis,” he said.
According to Puchkov, his ministry signed a number of framework systemic documents with APEC member countries in October 2012. “We have prepared relevant programs for further coordination between our services in case of large-scale emergency situation and advanced an initiative to set up a system of anti-crisis centers in all APEC countries,” he noted. “It will help us coordinate efforts of all services to ensure their efficiency in the event of large-scale cataclysms.”
Apart from that, the Russian emergencies ministry has good cooperation relations with member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
While in the United States, Puchkov had talks with the head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Craig Fugate. In Washington, the ministry’s delegation took part in regular meetings of the working group on cooperation in the area of preventing and liquidating emergency situation of the Russian-U.S. presidential commission and of the sectoral Russian-U.S. committee. In New York, Puchkov met with the heads of the local fire administration and attended an ice hockey match between Russian and U.S. fire fighters.