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Norwegian foreign minister invites Sergei Lavrov to visit kingdom

Sergei Lavrov is always a welcome guest in Norway - FM Borge Brende
Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende ITAR-TASS/EPA/Sergei Chirikov
Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende
© ITAR-TASS/EPA/Sergei Chirikov

MOSCOW, January 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende has invited his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to visit the kingdom.

“Sergei Lavrov is always a welcome guest in Norway,” Brende said after talks with Lavrov on Monday.

It would be very pleasant if the Russian minister could visit the kingdom on May 17 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Constitution and attend the celebrations in Finnmark on October 25 devoted to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Northern Norway from Nazism. “It would be a pleasure to accept Minister Lavrov twice this year,” the Norwegian minister said.

Lavrov said, “Such invitations have not been given up. I believe that we’ll find an opportunity to mark all memorial dates. Thank you for remembering the history.”

The Norwegian minister said during the meeting with the Russian counterpart, they “discussed personal contacts, cooperation between people, interaction between civil societies and Russia’s membership in the Arctic Council”.

“We stressed the importance to continue cooperation related to chemical weapons and their elimination in Syria. Norway takes part in transporting chemical weapons from Syria and this is a very difficult and important task,” Brende said.

“As for fisheries capture, we won’t cut cooperation. We have an opportunity to discuss the recent incident between our countries. We hope that a meeting will be held soon in Moscow to settle the existing disagreements,” the Norwegian minister said.

“We achieved big progress in the environmental protection and nuclear cooperation. I hope that we’ll have more joint projects in the energy sector,” he added.