Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Secretary General, colleagues, good afternoon.

I am happy to see you here in Moscow. We have cooperated with the ICAO for years, and I would say our cooperation has been rewarding. In fact, we discussed transport safety and security issues at the government presidium meeting this morning. We have a government programme for this.

This year 60 million passengers will be transited by air within Russia. The number of air passengers continues to grow. We have another programme that runs until 2015, to improve flight safety. We have allocated 160 billion roubles for it, or about $5.3 billion at the current exchange rate.

Overall, this is a fast-growing high-tech industry. We would very much like to develop further cooperation with all our traditional partners, based on international agreements and regulations and within the ICAO framework.

We also need to make more effort with issues that are not covered by international agreements, but we hope to settle those as well, preferably with your assistance.

For example, our European partners are introducing new environmental rules next year. They will include quota trades for greenhouse gases. Russia has ratified the Kyoto emission targets and is making every effort to observe these rules and preserve the natural environment. At the same time, we believe that the unilateral change planned – setting the limit at 85% of the 2010 baseline and making airlines pay for any excess – is aimed at boosting the European aircraft manufacturers' competitiveness.

We would expect an international organisation like the ICAO to discuss these issues. We will discuss many questions in this meeting, and we are glad to see you here.

Raymond Benjamin (via interpreter): Mr Prime Minister, first of all I would like to thank you for the time you are giving to our organisation and to me personally. It is an honour for me to be here. You have made it clear from the start that you are perfectly familiar with aviation issues, and you have described the situation very accurately. The ICAO has three strategic goals: safety, security, including anti-terrorism measures, and environmental protection.

As Mr Levitin has told you, I have come to Moscow to consider what we can do to avoid terrorist attacks, like the ones we see around the world. We have adopted a very ambitious declaration on that account today.

The other purpose of my visit to Russia is to expand the cooperation between the ICAO and Russia. As you have noted, Mr Prime Minister, our cooperation dates back years, and I believe we can expand this cooperation still further. I have already proposed to Mr Levitin a strategic partnership between the ICAO and Russia in Europe.

The ICAO is a global organisation and we establish guidelines at the international level. But the only way for us to assure that these guidelines are observed is to establish partnerships with specific countries, such as Russia, which we believe to have a strategically important position in Europe.

I believe that we can establish special, preferential relations and cooperate with regional organizations such as the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC). For example, our technological cooperation could benefit all of the region's countries.