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Putin to hold bilateral talks with some European leaders, UN Guterres at SPIEF

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin is to meet the Bulgarian leader, the Slovak prime minister and the prime minister of Armenia

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold bilateral talks with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) later in the week, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists on Tuesday.

"The Russian president will meet separately on June 6 with the president of the Republic of Bulgaria, the Slovak prime minister and the prime minister of Armenia," Ushakov said. On June 7, Putin will meet with the UN secretary general and Prime Minister of Saxony (German federal state) Michael Kretschmer, he added.

"Besides, he will have a host of bilateral contacts on the sidelines of the forum - some of them are scheduled, while others are not even envisaged by any program. In other words, our president will communicate actively, including informally, with participants in the forum," the Kremlin aide said.

Putin will continue contacts with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom he will have full-fledged talks in Moscow a day earlier, on June 5. "After the ceremony to hand over the honorary doctor’s degree of St. Petersburg University to the Chinese president, our leader will have another informal conversation with Xi Jinping late on June 6. It will be an informal dinner one-on-one in which only interpreters will participate," he added.

The Russian and Chinese leaders will continue an exchange of opinions on the issues discussed at the talks, and they may also touch upon any other issues, Ushakov said.

SPIEF-2019, dubbed "Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda," will take place on June 6-8. TASS is the general information partner and the official photohost agency of the event, organized by the Roscongress foundation.

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