MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/. Cooperation between Germany and Russia in investigating the Berlin murder of Georgian national Zelimkhan Khangoshvili would help boost relations, Prime Minister of Germany’s Bavaria region Markus Soder said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It is very important for us to make sure that our relations, which are already good, get better through political activities such as the Normandy process. At the same time, cooperation in investigating the Berlin murder would be most helpful. I think it would help improve relations," Soder pointed out.

"We seek to boost economic relations but we are also hopeful that it will be pissib le to quickly resolve the numerous political issues that exist today," he said.

According to the Bavarian prime minister, there are people in Germany who love Russia "but there also are those who are skeptical about Russia." "It is very important for us to continue cooperation," he emphasized.

The Russian leader, in turn, stated that Moscow and Bavaria had always maintained good relations. "Bavarians actively work in Russia," he noted. "Suffice to say, one in five German companies that are active in Russia is from Bavaria and more than half of major investment in the Russian economy comes from companies registered in Bavaria," Putin noted.

 

Berlin murder

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a press conference following the December Normandy Four summit that Moscow had repeatedly called on Germany to extradite Khangoshvili to Russia because he had been one of the masterminds of Moscow metro bombings and had fought alongside militants in the North Caucasus. According to Putin, just one of the attacks that he organized killed 98 people. "I don’t know what happened to him. Anything at all can happen in the world of crime," Putin noted.

The 40-year-old Georgian national was killed in the German capital on August 23, 2019. The Berlin prosecution said later that a 49-year-old Russian suspect had been detained.