NOVO-OGARYOVO, December 11. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to expand cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and other countries. Particularly, the issue is about providing Uzbekistan and Cuba with an observer status in the integration.
"Expanding integration within the EAEU framework is becoming interesting for a whole number of foreign countries," he said at a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on Friday. "A decision to provide an observer status to the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of Cuba" will be taken at Friday’s meeting, he said, adding that "it is a genuinely important step on strengthening the Union’s ties with natural, traditional partners."
"An agreement on cooperation between EAEU and such economically large countries as China, India is being implemented," Putin said. "The first round of talks on a free trade agreement with India will be held shortly," he added.
"Today we will approve the launch of similar talks with Iran," Russian President said, adding that the idea of making preferential agreements with Indonesia and Mongolia is welcome.
A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) secretariat and the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) at an SCO summit on November 10, Putin said. "We consider that to be another step towards implementation of the idea we initiated to create a large Eurasian partnership in the field of security, economic and humanitarian cooperation," he emphasized. In this respect, expansion of cooperation with other countries and regional integrations is very important, Putin said. "The issue is first of all about linking the activities of EAEU to implementation of the Chinese ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative," he added.