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Russia, Syria are finalizing economic cooperation agreement — Russian Deputy PM

Yury Borisov also confirmed that Russia is ready to continue to provide military and humanitarian aid to Syria

DAMASCUS, June 22. /TASS/. The preparation of an intergovernmental agreement on trade and economic cooperation between Russia and Syria is at the final stage, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said on Tuesday. He was speaking at a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.

"We are at the final stage of preparing a future intergovernmental agreement, which will regulate all our trade and economic interaction for a long term," he said.

Borisov also confirmed that Russia is ready to continue to provide military and humanitarian aid to Syria.

Earlier on Tuesday, Borisov met in Damascus with Minister of Presidential Affairs of Syria, Mansour Azzam.

At that meeting, Borisov said that Russia aims to strengthen bilateral relations with Syria to restore energy, industry, transport and agriculture in Syria.

The Russian official underscored the strengthening of positive trends in the development of the situation in Syria. According to him, with the active assistance of Russia, it was possible to achieve compliance with a stable cessation of hostilities. Borisov stressed that further normalization should be ensured not so much by military-political as by socio-economic means.

"We reaffirm our readiness to continue to provide our Syrian friends with comprehensive assistance in all areas. We attach great importance to the development of the entire range of bilateral cooperation, while at the current stage we pay the greatest attention to issues related to the intensification of bilateral ties in such priority sectoral areas as energy, industrial cooperation, transport, agriculture," he said.

On behalf of the Russian leadership and himself, Borisov congratulated Mansour Azzam and the entire Syrian people on the victory of Bashar al-Assad in the presidential elections on May 26. He noted that the results of the vote fully confirmed Assad's political authority and the public's confidence in the course under his leadership to quickly stabilize the situation in Syria and strengthen its state institutions.

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