Secretary Antony J. Blinken And Turkmenistan Foreign Minister Rasit Meredov Before Their Meeting

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, good afternoon, everyone.  It’s a pleasure to be here with Foreign Minister Meredov, to see him again after, I think, our last meeting in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly.  We are proud of the now more than 30-years partnership that we’ve built with Turkmenistan.  We’re committed to its sovereignty, its independence, its territorial integrity.  And we’re looking forward to doing more together to address not only some of the regional challenges, but also global challenges like climate change, as well as trying to build even stronger economic prosperity and opportunity for people, dealing with regional security, and of course deep-rooting democratic values.  

So it’s a pleasure to have this opportunity for us to spend some time together before our meeting with our colleagues in a couple of hours.  Good to see you.

FOREIGN MINISTER MEREDOV:  Thank you very much, (inaudible) Secretary of State.  As well I would like to express my personal gratitude for today’s meeting.  (Inaudible) opportunity for me personally to discuss really important issues regarding our bilateral cooperation and some of the international and regional issues.  At the same time, I think that it will be very great opportunity to talk about here expanding cooperation between Turkmenistan and the United States.  In this context, I would like to say that we have a very good and effective mechanism of the bilateral consultations – ABC – and I would really appreciate if we will arrange these consultations as soon as possible, because we need to talk about the really important issues (inaudible) bilateral cooperation, and in particular regional issues.  Thank you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.