OREANDA-NEWS. September 03, 2010. At the invitation of Foreign Minister of the Republic of Poland Radoslaw Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov paid a working visit to Warsaw from September 1-2. For the first time in the practice of bilateral relations, the head of the Russian foreign affairs agency attended a meeting of Polish ambassadors and permanent representatives. Lavrov also held talks with his Polish counterpart Sikorski.

In his speech to the heads of the Polish diplomatic missions, the Russian minister vividly described Russia's position on key international issues. In particular, he drew the partners’ attention to the Russian initiative for a European Security Treaty, and explained the philosophy of our country’s approaches to fostering relations with the EU and NATO. During the ensuing detailed and frank debate, key questions of cooperation between Russia and Poland were discussed, along with prospects for bilateral interaction in various formats, in particular, in the context of the Russian-EU Partnership for Modernization initiative, and topical international issues.

During the talks at the Polish Foreign Ministry, both sides were pleased to note the existence of potential for the transfer of Russian-Polish relations onto the plane of genuine good-neighborliness and expressed a reciprocal willingness to build them in a spirit of constructive partnership based on mutual respect and consideration for the interests of each other. The ministers of both countries compared their approaches to the principal mechanisms of Russian-Polish interaction: the Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation, Group for Difficult Issues arising from the history of Russian-Polish relations, the Russian-Polish Public Forum and the Forum of Regions. The date for the next session of the Russian-Polish Cooperation Strategy Committee, chaired by the Foreign Ministers, was set. The ministers also touched on topical aspects of economic, trade and energy cooperation, regional and humanitarian ties, and matters relating to the facilitation of mutual trips of residents of border areas of Russia and Poland, and generally improving the legal framework for bilateral collaboration.