Ladies and gentlemen,

My colleague from Brunei Dato Erywan Yusof and I had meaningful and concrete talks covering a broad range of questions of mutual interest on the bilateral agenda, as well as relating to our cooperation within the UN and in the Asia-Pacific Region.

Brunei is an important and promising partner to Russia in the Asia-Pacific Region. Our relations are predicated on the principles of friendship and mutual respect. Today, we reaffirmed our mutual commitment to promoting political dialogue, including at the foreign ministry level. We also agreed on facilitating inter-parliamentary and other contacts.

We are looking forward to seeing representatives of Brunei Darussalam at the upcoming Development of Parliamentarism International Forum this summer. We also expect representatives of the Brunei government to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June 2019, as well as the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok and the upcoming international meeting of senior security officials held by the Secretariat of Russia’s Security Council.

At this stage, we prioritise stepping up trade, economic and investment ties. We noted that despite the modest mutual trade flows, there are great opportunities for further efforts to expand trade, including in energy, agriculture, manufacturing and sales of halal products, as well as medical equipment supplies.

In particular, we agreed that in order for these opportunities to materialise, we need to be more proactive in facilitating direct business-to-business ties. Over the past years three Russian business missions visited Brunei Darussalam, and a number of interesting projects have been discussed following these visits. We will be glad to welcome similar visits to Russia by Brunei businessmen. I also believe in the potential of establishing contacts between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Brunei Investment Agency, just like RDIF works with its partners from a number of countries, including in the Middle East.

I believe that the ongoing talks on the memorandum between Brunei and the Eurasian Economic Union will significantly expand our opportunities to step up trade and economic ties.

We remain committed to promoting military and military-technical cooperation, as well as working together on countering the terrorist threat, drug trafficking, transnational crime, and other security challenges.

We expressed our gratitude for the decision by our friends from Brunei to join the International Counter-Terrorism Database created by Russia’s Federal Security Service with the view to tracking the movement of foreign terrorist militants across the world.

We also agreed to accelerate efforts to update our contractual legal framework, deciding to step up efforts on a number of projects currently reviewed by the parties, including cooperation in law enforcement, fighting drug trafficking, and disaster prevention and relief, as well as education, research and tourism.

We reaffirmed our mutual interest in expanding educational and cultural exchanges. We expressed gratitude for the opening of a Russian literature department at the University of Brunei Darussalam, having helped with supplying textbooks and other books for this institution.

We also discussed the regional and global agenda. In this regard, we share convergent or similar views. As we discussed at length during today’s meeting, we believe in the absolute necessity for all countries without exception to abide by international law, primarily the norms and principles enshrined in the UN Charter. We share the view that crises and conflicts should be resolved exclusively through peaceful, political and diplomatic means and in keeping with international law. Guided by these principles, we exchanged views on a number of current developments, including in the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East and North Africa, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear programme, and developments in Venezuela. We stressed the need for the international community to combine its efforts in countering the new common challenges and threats, primarily extremism and terrorism.

We are committed to further stepping up our cooperation within the UN. Russia is grateful to Brunei Darussalam for constantly supporting key Russian initiatives within the UN, including resolutions to combat the glorification of Nazism, prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space, and on international information security and a number of other topics.

We reviewed Russia’s relations with ASEAN that reached a new level of a strategic partnership at the third Russia-ASEAN Summit last year. Brunei Darussalam contributed to reaching this agreement in a very constructive manner.

We discussed our cooperation within the ASEAN Regional Forum, East-Asia Summits, the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting-Plus, attended by Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, and APEC Forum.

All in all, these were meaningful and useful talks. We are satisfied with their outcomes. Let me reiterate that we reaffirmed our mutual commitment to expanding out friendly relations across the board as we prepare to celebrate their 30th anniversary in two years.