BEIJING, February 14. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit the Chinese capital, Beijing, on April 26-27 to take part in a One Belt, One Road forum, Russia’s Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov told journalists on Thursday, adding that the Russian leader would be the main guest of the event.
"As for the [Russian-Chinese] contacts at the high and summit level, of what know as of today this will be the April summit of the One Belt, One Road initiative, where Vladimir Vladimirovich has been invited as the main guest. The dates have already been confirmed, we are waiting for our president in China on April 26, 27," the ambassador said in reply to a query.
He also stressed that diplomatic cooperation of Moscow and Beijing last year was "rather impressive". "Four meetings took place last year, for summits of our leaders, six meetings of the foreign ministers and four meetings of the defense ministers," he said. "A regular meeting of the heads of government also took place" last year, the ambassador added.
He said that last year the prime ministers of Russia and China also met separately with the presidents. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev met for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping while Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China Li Keqiang met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They met in a bilateral format as well as on the sidelines of international events.
"We have rather quickly restored the efficiency of our multidimensional intergovernmental mechanism. Why am I saying ‘restored’? The activity of this mechanism has never stopped, but the new governments came in 2018, we also had the presidential election in Russia, and the lineup of the commissions has changed," the diplomat went on to say.
"All this was restored rather promptly, and already by the November meeting of the premiers, that took place in China on November 7, we had managed to have meetings of co-chairmen of all our intergovernmental commissions," the senior diplomat said.
"As of now, we can say that work will be easier for us in this respect in 2019. We are already working on the schedule of meetings of our intergovernmental commissions’ co-chairpersons at the level of deputies to the prime minister," Andrey Denisov specified.