Dear participants of the Meeting! Dear Binali Yıldırım, Moon Hee-sang!
First of all, for my part, I would like to thank our Turkish colleagues and the Turkish parliament for their hospitality and for organizing the Third Meeting of Speakers of Eurasian Countries’ Parliaments. Thank you very much.
Today, our format is coming to a new level, it is expanding. This year new parliamentary delegations from 15 states have joined us.
The meeting of speakers of the Eurasian parliaments creates the basis of multi-level parliamentary diplomacy, helps to solve the problem of strengthening economic and humanitarian ties, deepening integration processes, and build relations on the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states and respect to each other.
Many significant events have occurred since our meeting in Seoul. I will dwell on some of them.
The first. Considering that we are having a meeting in the Middle East, in the region where the fight against terrorism continues, first of all, I will note the decisions of the Presidents of Russia, Turkey, and Iran to resolve the situation in Syria. Most of the Syrian territory has been freed from terrorists. People are returning to their homes. Today it is important to help the Syrian people in restoring the country's economy and achieving civil peace. Harmony shall come to the Syrian land, and parliamentarians can make a significant contribution to the achievement of this task.
The second. In September the Republic of Korea and the DPRK signed an agreement aimed at reducing tensions and conflicts on the Korean Peninsula. Our Korean colleagues agreed to resume inter-parliamentary dialogue. These confidence-building measures are important not only for the Korean people but also for all countries. Therefore, we wish our colleagues success in their future work on building relationships, reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and achieving peace and stability.
The third. In August, the Presidents of the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, including economic and environmental aspects and security issues. Now the task of parliaments is to ensure the ratification of the Convention, the implementation of its provisions in national legislation.
Colleagues, it is important to use all opportunities for the formation of a mutually beneficial, open, equal partnership from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
Within the framework of the parliamentary dimension, we shall bring together our approaches on issues that require joint decisions, to promote international cooperation and the development of integration economic projects in Eurasia.
This becomes especially important in the context of the US protectionism and the construction of trade barriers. The US’s withdrawal from the previously signed Paris Agreement on Climate and the multilateral agreement on Iran’s nuclear program creates a dangerous precedent. We shall understand this. All these actions contradict generally accepted norms of international law and threaten world trade and economic relations.
Only together we can find effective solutions and overcome challenges by restoring the atmosphere of trust.
Dear colleagues!
We need to do a lot to build open and fair cooperation. It is primarily about protecting investments, streamlining the procedure for moving goods across the border, modernizing technical standards, and facilitating access to services and capital markets.
This task is already being solved by our country together with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). In particular, a legislative and regulatory framework that is sufficient to launch the first Internet commerce digital projects, technology for tracking the movement of goods, creating transport channels, and industrial cooperation within the EAEU has been created.
The EAEU is a deep integration center with supranational governance structures. It is a new economic reality that meets the requirements of the World Trade Organization and the approaches to the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
I will note the growing interest in the development of trade and economic relations with the Eurasian Economic Union. More than 50 countries intend to establish a special trade regime with the EAEU. The parliamentary delegations of most of them are present in this room. Today we can say that, using our meeting to develop dialogue and give impetus to integration projects, via new forms and new approaches we could solve more effectively the tasks that our states and all countries of the world community face to build mutual trust and more effective relationships.
Colleagues!
Once again I want to emphasize. Our interactive format is expanding. Today, it is timely and right to think about improving communication within it. In this regard, I support the proposal of the Chairman of the Turkish Parliament, Mr. Yıldırım, and I consider it right to further improve the approaches to the development of communication between our meetings. In this regard, our cyber secretary office, which we created in Seoul, shall become more actively used by the participants of the Meeting. To work between meetings, we need an effective channel for exchanging offers in real time. It is equally important to promote the recommendations and initiatives that are formed at our meeting in other Eurasian integration formats.
And I would like to support our colleague, the Chairman of the South Korean Parliament in his initiative to create a cyber secretariat. It would be right for us to once again return to this issue, to do everything so that this structure works more efficiently, and the approach itself would bring the final result. Together, we will be able to secure the future of our continent as a single space of peace, justice, cooperation, and security.
Dear colleagues!
I wish you fruitful work, I wish you all to achieve the results during today's meeting and, most importantly, I wish you useful discussions.
Thank you for attention.
