The Belarusian and Russian leaders are expected to have more meetings later this year, Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters on Thursday.
Mr. Prikhodko held the news conference following Mr. Medvedev’s meeting with Alyaksandr Lukashenka who is staying in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The two leaders have a "tight schedule of contacts" for the remainder of 2009, RIA Novosti quoted Mr. Prikhodko as saying.
They are to attend the Zapad (West) 2009 military maneuvers to be held in Belarus on September 29 and a summit of the Eurasian Economic Community scheduled for November 27, he said, noting that Messrs. Lukashenka and Medvedev also had agreed to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit.
"We hope that active work will ensure a success of other important events, including a session of the Russian-Belarusian [Union State] Supreme State Council that can, tentatively, be held in Moscow in the first half of this December," the presidential aide said.
When commenting on the agenda of the two leaders’ Thursday meeting that lasted more than three hours, Mr. Prikhodko said that it had focused on "the general situation in Russian-Belarusian relations, current issues including economic cooperation, the coordination of foreign policies and regional security.""The sides confirmed their wish to make additional efforts to accelerate the solution of accumulated problems," he said, noting that the governments of the two countries had been ordered to hold consultations on problems hampering financial and economic cooperation.
