Foreign Minister Ivanov: First of all I would like to welcome the Foreign Minister of Israel who is visiting this country for the first time. We have held very fruitful and detailed talks on Russian-Israeli cooperation and on regional problems which are connected with the Middle East settlement and with some other problems.

As for Russian-Israeli relations, we note with satisfaction that they are developing successfully. We are interested not only in maintaining, but in developing such dynamics in all areas of mutual interest. We are satisfied with the high level of political dialogue between our countries, the expanding cooperation in the trade and economic fields, in the field of culture and science.

Our foreign ministries are interacting closely in international arena. And this is true above all of the participation of Russia and Israel in the international anti-terrorist coalition. Our countries, unfortunately, are confronted with manifestations of international terrorism. We condemn terrorism in any form and we think there can be no justification for it.

Russia has welcome the recent accords regarding the advance of Israeli-Palestinian settlement on the basis of the road map worked out by the Quartet. We believe that this plan opens the prospects for settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian relations and we will give every support to it. But one should proceed from the fact that a comprehensive Middle East settlement calls for progress on the Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Lebanese tracks. The Israeli Foreign Minister has stressed that Russia can play a still more active role in the Middle East settlement. We welcome this and we will continue to interact closely in implementing the agreements that are fixed in the road map.

This is our first meeting, and I want to say that our negotiations were very frank. We touched upon issues connected with the settlement of the situation in Iraq, the Iranian nuclear problem and other issues and we discussed these issues in a very frank and constructive manner.

Question: How would you comment on the statement by the DPRK that it intends to create a nuclear deterrent?

Foreign Minister Ivanov: Russia is coming out for a nuclear-free status of the Korean Peninsula. Our position remains unchanged.