Medvedev: Sarkozy And I, And Some U.S. Officials, Agree On Holding Expanded G-8 Conference On Crisis

Oct. 10, 2008 (LPAC) -- Speaking to the press today after a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Community interstate council, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced he had discussed the idea of an urgent international economic summit, with President Nicholas Sarkozy and others. "It would be useful," Medvedev said, and it should include "other key economies that determine the world financial climate." Those would be China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and possibly others.

Medvedev recalled, once again, that he personally had pushed at the June 2008 St. Petersburg Economic Forum and the G-8 meeting in Japan, for talks on "preparing some kind of new economic security architecture." Today, he said, the need for an expanded G-8 meeting is supported not only in Europe, "but I have also heard statements from some individual U.S. officials, who think this is the right idea."

While Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is in Washington, on the eve of the Group of 7 finance ministers' meeting and the IMF/World Bank annual session, Medvedev said that the just-held Community of Independent States summit (also in Bishkek) had decided for CIS finance ministers to convene in Moscow 10 days from now "to synchronize their watches."

The CIS comprises the former republics of the Soviet Union, except for the Baltic States; Georgia has just announced its withdrawal as of next year. The presidents of Azerbaijan, which is on the eve of elections, and Ukraine, being in the midst of a government crisis, were absent from the CIS summit. EurAsEC comprises Russia, Belarus, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.