ITURUP ISLAND (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, the head of the Russian government arrived on the disputed Kuril Islands for a working visit.
"The project of the the Silk Road belt is in no way a competitor for us, to some extent it is a partnership project, which we have agreed with our Chinese counterparts. We have agreed that we will try to combine the possibilities of that the project, as well as the opportunities that are open due our common market with Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia [members of the Eurasian Economic Union], " Medvedev said.
Medvedev expressed hope that the project would be beneficial for every member state of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
During the July Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Russia's Ufa, Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Cheng Guoping said that integration between China's Silk Road Economic Belt and the EEU would give a positive impulse to the economic cooperation between all the SCO member states.
The SCO is an international alliance comprising Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
