"The present visit of the Uzbek president has been prepared since January 2004. I can say straight: this meeting was unconditionally deep and fruitful," Safayev said.
"Though only eight months have passed since our presidents' last meeting in Samarkand, which was very important for us, issues that demand assessment, analyzing and discussing have accumulated," the Uzbek foreign minister said.
In his words, the presidents agreed to hold a bilateral meeting as part of the forum of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in June 2004 in Tashkent.
He noted that the main aim of Islam Karimov's visit to Moscow was "to reveal the points of mutual interests and determine the mechanism of their realization." "I believe this has been done. The presidents agreed that political dialogue will be deepened," Safayev stressed.
He said an instruction was given to the two countries' foreign ministries to "work out prospects of deepening the legal-contractual base of our bilateral cooperation to fix the strategic nature of partner relations between our countries in a legal-contractual form." Sadyk Safayev said "the future agreement will cover all spheres of political multilateral and bilateral cooperation, including in the issues of meeting the national cultural demands of Russian speakers residing in Uzbekistan and Uzbek speakers residing in Russia, as well as issues of security, peacemaking contacts, stability and interaction of relevant structures."
