Medvedev "satisfied" with results of economic summit

Nov 15, 2008, 22:12 GMT

Washington - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he was satisfied with the steps that the world's largest economies agreed to enact during an emergency summit in Washington on Saturday to address the financial crisis.

'I'd like to say I am satisfied with the results we've achieved,' Medvedev told a gathering at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank after attending the Group of 20 summit hosted by US President George W Bush.

Medvedev, speaking through a translator, characterized the agreement as a set of 'major principles and rules' to reform the international finance system and designed to prevent, in the future, an economic downturn like the one the world is currently undergoing.

It was his first trip to Washington since succeeding Vladimir Putin in May, and at a time of soured relations between the United States and Russia.

The Russian president said working together with the US to resolve the economic crisis was an opportunity for the two countries to rebuild relations, and added that a new US administration under president-elect Barack Obama offered a fresh chance to improve ties.

The economic crisis that began in the US finance market has spread to Russia, and his country has 'paid a high price for these problems,' he said.

While describing the unprecedented G20 summit as 'positive,' Medvedev commented that the impact of the pledged reforms will take months to measure and will be reviewed when the group reconvenes sometime next spring in either Japan or Britain.

'We will meet again and we will take stock of what has happened,' Medvedev said in the discussion moderated by former US secretary of state and Obama advisor Madeleine Albright.

The United States and Russia have been at odds over US plans to deploy a missile-defence system to Poland and the Czech Republic, and took a turn for the worse over the military conflict in Georgia.