security council, but do violate underground by supporting the terrorist groups and by sending its military aircrafts to bomb oil installations and economic infrastructure and by imposing unilateral sanctions on the syrian people. madame president, the success of any political process in syria requires that the government of syria be an integral part and party. there must be cooperation with the syrian government in all aspects of this path if we want success. in parallel, the success of the political path requires an international commitment and a sincere and real political will from all, notably those countries that have direct influence on the parties that

undermine the political path and those that provide them with a lifeline while the international community emphasizes there is only one solution and that is the political solution. there are those who do irresponsib irresponsibly echo and repeat they will resort to a military solution and gave names to its failed initiatives. such names as stones, volcanos, the cyclones, and the tornados. it has become quite clear that the success of the political process is predicated on a serious and effective and combatting of terrorism. my country welcomes the adoption of the resolution and the

efforts to submit the resolutions which have complemented and added important dimensions not fully covered in the previous resolutions of the security council on combatting terrorism by imposing clear and unambiguous obligations on those countries that support terrorism, notably the implementation of resolutions 2170, 2178, 2199. resolution 20253 has responded to several preoccupations raised by our delegation and through the previous years. consequently my country joined the country's response in 20253 and it is our hope that this resolution would close the gap between words and deeds. we do not want hollow, unrealistic alliances led by the

supporters of terrorism only the erode the resolutions to combat terrorism and certainly not selective alliances that violate the sovereignty of the states or divisive alliances that support isil and their ideology. i'm quite aware that restoring peace and stability in all parts of syria require that we deal immediately with the threat posed by terrorism within international community. consequently the city and government is ready to put an end to combatting in errors where there are syrian armed groups in order to realize international negotiation in a manner that would restore

normalcy to those parts and institutions to the state and the region whereby the armed groups will give up their arms in order to settle their conditions and to be pardoned. we have successful experiments in this field and there are experiments that are being carried out now. the syrian government seeks to expand this reconciliation to restore stability and security, but for terrorist groups and mercenaries like daesh, al nusra, the syrian government will never engage in any dialogue and we'll continue fighting them until we eradicate them. all honorable syrians are called to participate in the

equal above the law, where the city and people alone would lead their leadership with freedom, transparency, and without any foreign intervention of influence. in conclusion, my attention was drawn by glaring contradictions in some of the statements of the speakers today. only the syrian people are to decide their future without any

foreign interventions at a time when they have delved into issues of sovereignty relating to the issue of prisons in my country, a matter that is a prerequisite of the syrian people alone. i quote, it stresses that the syrian people will decide the future of syria, end of quote. this type of interfering through basis of sovereignty in my country only exposes the real intentions of the policies of those speakers. without the context of the resolution before the ink dry, they started a resolution that they have just adopted and agreed, but they started interpreting its provisions in the manner they want. this is not a promising

behavior. this does not instill confidence in what we hear and what we do. thank you, madame president. >> there are no more names inscribed on the list of speakers. before i adjourn the meeting, i want to alert council members to the fact we'll shortly be likely starting our subsequent meeting on the iraq-turkey situation. we do not have precise timing from the delegations on that, but it will be in the very near future. if delegations could hang around, we would be grateful. with that, the meeting is adjourned. thank you. on the road to the white house saturday, we'll take you to new hampshire where senator and republican presidential

candidate lindsey graham will speak to supporters at a town hall. that will be live at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span. later, jeb bush will take part in a town hall in windham, new hampshire. you can find that at 4:30 on c-span. with congress on holiday recess beginning next week, the c-span network will have primetime programming. monday night at 9:00 eastern, our new series "landmark cases." this week it's the 1973 case of roe v. wade. wednesday night, charleston's emmanuel african-american methodist episcopal church hosts a discussion on gun violence. thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, christmas at the white house. on christmas day friday night at 8:00, former president bill

clinton receives the bob dole institute of politics' leadership prize. tuesday night at 8:00, features books on presidential history. wednesday night authors talk about their books on the supreme court. thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, events and people in history. on christmas friday night at 8:00 several of our afterwards programs from this year. monday at 10:30 p.m. eastern we feature programs on russian spies. tuesday at 8:00, congressional history. wednesday night, the 150th anniversary of the end of the civil war. thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, tom brokaw on world war ii and its impact. christmas friday night at 8:00, we'll travel to williamsburg talking with historians about colonial life on the eve of

revolution. now from baghdad army colonel steven warren of the combined joint task force speaks on military operations in syria. he discusses coalition operations and showed a video on the latest air strikes of target in iraq. he denied reports that russian air systems in syria are disrupting coalition air operations. this is about an hour and a half. >> okay. good morning, everybody. happy year's end. as you see we've taken our curtain down for our year end cleaning. we're pleased to have colonel steve warren join us today from operation inherent resolve in baghdad. steve, we'll turn it over to you. >> thank you, jeff. greetings everyone there in the

pentagon. it was a pleasure to see many of your colleagues traveling with the secretary over the last couple of days. and that's the first thing i'd like to talk about. i wanted to let you know that we had a great visit by the secretary of defense over the last two days. for those of you who saw the reporting, the secretary had informative meetings with several iraqi leaders and operation inherent resolve commander and leaders. he had an opportunity to engage with troops on the ground here who are working hard every day to support the iraqi forces and to defeat isil. i'm going to begin this week with the operational update. tom, if you would please bring up the map on my screen, so i can see it. while that's happening, we continue to attack isil in both syria and iraq and across the breadth and depth of this battlefield. so i'm going to work our way

around the map. i'll start off with the close star number two, the isf continued to conduct clearing operations to eliminate pockets of resistance. the main focus of those clearing operations is now the mountains, which is north of it and on the other side of the river. moving on to sinjar, which is star number 3. coalition forces continue to support peshmerga clearance operations with air strikes. in fallujah, which is star number 4, the isf have moved several brigade-sized units into positions around the city and have begun operations to isolate enemy forces within that city. star number five, we continue to

disrupt enemy command and control through air strikes. the operations between them conducted jointly by isf and sunni tribal forces provide additional isolation of fallujah and the entire ewe fray dees river valley. star number six, the syrian democratic forces are marshaling in preparation to push. off to the far left edge of your map, which is off the map. you might be able to see star number seven on there. the forces around the line have seen tough fighting over the past week. they've traded punches&4÷ and fighting with the isil fighters in the area.

blue circle number two, we continue disrupting revenue by striking oil infrastructure that supports isil's illicit oil activities. a tidal wave two attack struck another gas and oil plant in this area on december 13th. we continue training, equipping, advising and assisti ining iraq security forces. we have trained and equipped 16,000 troops since the start of building partner capacity operations and we have more than 4,300 in training this week. this effort continues. while the army is engaged in combat operations, it is truly like building an airplane while in flight. i left ramadi and northern iraq for last. there were significant fights in both of these places this week. both of these fights tell us

something about the current status of this overall effort. in each place isil was able to muster an offensive effort, which tells us they still have some fight left in them. however and much more importantly in each fight iraqi forces were able to rebuff isil's efforts. i'd like to quickly walk you through both of these fights. in ramadi, isil assaulted in the north on tuesday and were able to temporarily push iraqi security forces off the palestine bridge. we've spoken about this bridge for a long time. it is a significant landmark. isil sent a truck bomb supported by infantry towards the anbar ops center in an effort to

retake that. coalition air power bought time for the isf to organize a counterattack and they regained the palestine bridge. towards northern iraq, which is right along the red edge there, you see the blue number one. up near the one you can see how the red line moves into yellow. that's the forward line of troops. the main town, which is not shown on your map, where this fight took place is -- that fight took place -- thank you. that's perfect. that fight took place along the kurdish forces and began at 16:17 hours on wednesday and it began with rocket fire on a peshmerga position.

that rocket attack kicked off a b battalion sized flat. forces struck in those three places and were able to penetrate the flat in each of those places. the enemy used several construction vehicles such as excavators to breach defensive placements around the flat, but coalition managed to destroy every one of these vehicles. today's video is a compilation from the air strikes. would you please roll the

videotape? [ video playing ]

[ video playing ]

>> thank you. there's something i also want to point out during all this and that's while this attack was going on and while aircraft from five coalition nations were able to surge and help the peshmerga beat this attack back, the coalition was simultaneously attacking ining isil in the so heart of the caliphate, which is

raqqah. while this was happening along the kurdish flot, there are b-1s striking multiple targets in raqqah against the headquarters, training camp, and another building. while isil was trying to strike into the fralank of the iraqi security forces, i think it is important to note that we were simultaneously knocking that flanking attack back and striking right into isil's heart. with that, i'll take the questions. i think i saw bob there. why don't we start with you, bob? >> hello, steve. question for you about the effect, if any, of the placement of russian surface air missiles in syria, western syria. there have been some reports this has had some effect on coalition air operations. can you explain if that's true how so?

>> yeah. i've seen some of those reports. i'll tell you they are, i think, largely inaccurate. so while there have been -- and we've openly discussed the presence of russian and syrian air defense systems in northern syria, i can tell you has not been a significant disruption to our operations. we conduct strikes in northwestern syria continually. we conducted strikes as recently as two days ago. we did some strikes in the pocket last night, so the answer is no. we're aware of them and we have the ability to continue our operations unabated. the russians, their actions do not dictate how we do business and that is simply not going to happen. we will continue to conduct our operations in support of local

ground forces there in syria. >> do you have anything on additional u.s. aircraft going after the f-15s have departed to replace them to some degree? >> we don't have any announcements to make now. i'll tell you, bob, we have sufficient air power to conduct the operations we want to conduct. these are rotations, right? so the f-15s that departed earlier in the week, that was planned. when they got there, we knew when they were going to leave. so we'll continue to rotate aircraft. this operation has been going on for over a year now, so there's a requirement to rotate aircraft. a squadron or some other sized unit of aircraft will depart. maybe it will be sometime before another one is there to replace

it. >> one of the reports that bob cited said that u.s. has stopped flying manned air support missions for rebels in a key part of syria due to russia's expansion of air defense system and said that these sa-17 air defense radar systems are painting the u.s. aircraft and that for now the u.s. seems to be ak wcquiescing to russian airports. are you denying what's in this report here? >> i am. the report is incorrect. we're continuing to conduct flights both manned and unmanned. we know exactly where that sa-17 is. it's in aleppo, but we're

continuing to strike everywhere that we want to strike. simple. >> there are multiple reports lately that the coalition has a depleting stock of coordinates available. is there enough stockpile to continue operations for the next foreseeable future? >> we have no concern whatsoever about stockpile of munitions. we have enough munitions to conduct the operations we need to conduct. >> hi, steve. this is joe. i would like to ask you about the secretary meeting with the prime minister this week. how would you describe it and also how would you describe the

level of communications with the iraqi government? were you surprised or was the u.s. military surprised about these comments that iraq doesn't welcome u.s. ground troops in iraq? >> our relations with the iraqi government are exceptionally good. we talk to the iraqi senior leadership every day, and we work very closely with them on our common goal, which is the defeat of daesh. so i don't know that the prime minister ever said they didn't welcome u.s. ground forces. every personnel who is here on the ground is here at the invitation of the iraqi government. what the iraqi government has made clear to us and made clear publicly is they are not interested in any forces coming

into iraq that haven't been invited. this is something that of course we understand. we respect. we have great respect for iraqi sovereignty and for the iraqi government. >> just a quick follow-up. i don't know if you agree with many local reportings in iraq saying that the slow of the fight against isil in iraq, the pace of the fight against isil in iraq, is very slow. would you agree with that? >> slow compared to what? >> slow compared -- the iraqi army has been preparing to -- has been clearing the area in ramadi for more than four or five months now, and we're still

hearing from you and from other officials that the iraqi army is still in the preparation stage. my question is, don't you think the retaking ramadi has taken too long and the pace is going too slow? >> the commanding general here for operation inherent resolve is named lieutenant general mcfarland, shawn mcfarland. when he was a colonel, he commanded the unit that was responsible for ramadi. it took then colonel mcfarland six months to bring ramadi under control. six months. and that's using all the might and power of the united states

military. and you yourself just now told me in your opinion it's taken the iraqis four months, so no, i don't think it's going slow. i think it is going at the pace that it has to go. of course, we always want wars to go faster. the faster the war is over, the sooner everyone can get home and they can begin the process of rebuilding. i think these claims that the pace is somehow wrong are really made by the uninformed observer. >> anybody else? you guys like you have more questions in you. good. we got one. >> can you talk a little bit about where they are in the fight in ramadi? there was something going around

on twitter that isis doesn't have the ability to resupply itself. is that true? >> sure. so what's happening in ramadi, i'll give you a quick review. the iraqi security forces assaulted along four axises. to the north, there's the tenth iraqi army division. to the east is a federal police outfit. to the west is the counterterrorist service or cts. all four of those axes over time has begun to slowly squeeze the city. in fact in the south, they have occupied a district which you can easily find on any map. it is the largest neighborhood in ramadi.

it is south of the euphrates river. it is largely empty of enemy forces. there's booby traps and minefields. to the west, the iraqi security forces have gained control of another camp. another significant objective in the west. they cleared 34 improvised explosive devices. along the west, there are two key terrain feature that is the iraqi army has gained control of. the first one is called the palestine bridge. it's a significant landmark there. it's the spot that allowed the iraqi security forces along the

northern axis to link up with the iraqi security forces along the western axis and close off the final line of supply, the final supply line that was available in ramadi. the enemy had largely been using the river, the euphrates river, to gain homemade explosives and weapons into the city. now that iraqi security forces have seized that palestine bridge and control both sides of the river bank, they're able to meter the flow of boats that sail south along the euphrates river. to the east, the federal police have set up a blocking position about four kilometers outside the city, which really isolates ramadi from fallujah, preventing the forces in fallujah from

providing reinforcements. the city of ramadi has now been fully isolated, and the iraqi security forces are beginning to conduct their clearing operations. sometimes i see the word sealed use. from a military perspective, it is not possible to seal off a city or a border or troops or anything like that. this is a war that you won't hear us ever use sealing something. there's always going to be rat lines, smuggling routes, infiltration points that the enemy is going to be able to use to bring individuals in or out, but what's important is that they aren't able to resupply the men themselves in significant numbers, nor are they able to maneuver forces outside the isolation zone. hopefully that answers your question. >> colonel warren, just a quick

follow on on those points that you made. the counterattack an the palestine bridge and the operations center, is it your assessment that was conducted with whatever remains of isis forces inside the city or were they able to somehow penetrate the perimeter with additional forces? >> great question, jim. thank you for that. the attack came from the north, so it came from outside the ramadi area. again, to the north of ramadi and a little bit west, this is an area that has not yet cleared, so the attack came from that direction. it came from north to south with infantry and v-beds. they were able to push the iraqi security forces off their defensive position they had

built at the bridge head there and continued penetrating south using infantry and a combined arms attack, but i'll tell you the iraqi security forces impressed us. they performed well. this is forces that we've trained using equipment that we've provided. while the initial attack was able to cause the iraqi security forces to have to withdraw off the bridge and open up a lane towards the anbar ops center, there was good communications along those internal lines. the iraqi security forces were able to stop that attack, that v-bid supported by infantry that was headed towards the ops center. they were able to stop it in its track. kill the infantry, destroy the v-bid before it was able to do

any damage to the anbar ops center. the iraqis who had been pushed off the bridge were able to reorganize. a counter-counterattack and knock isil off that bridge killing most of them, so it was an significant number of casualties. it was a good solid fight. a lot of enemy killed. the tall position was restored. i bring all this up. it's important. two real points and the same thing for this fight up north, it really brings up two points. point number one -- and we can't forget this is still a war. this is still a war. this enemy does have a little bit of fight left in them, so we shouldn't be polly annaish about

that. what this tells us also is the forces that we're aligned with, the iraqi security forces, cts, counterterrorist security forces here in and anbar and in central iraq along with the peshmerga forces up north, these are now becoming solid fighting forces. the pesh have always been solid. the iraqi security forces, it took some time to rebuild them, but what we're seeing is the fruits of that labor. they were able to hit back. think absorbed the blow that they received from isil. they reorganized. they pushed isil back here in this tactical action. they knocked them completely back on their heels. i think it is an important thing to note. >> louis. >> louis with abc. can i go back to that attack up north? you said it was a battalion sized force that conducted that attack.

how large a force numerically are we talki ining about? does that indicate they had a certain level of freedom of movement in that area? the canadians defense ministry, they're acknowledging their ground forces helped repel the attack. were any american forces also involved on the ground in pushing back the attack? >> thank you. those are very important questions. thanks for asking that. two points. first, i think the freedom to maneuver point. we estimate maybe 500 total enemy, maybe a little less. important to note air power alone killed nearly 200 of them. 187 by last count, so a significant blow to this enemy. ground forces, we don't have a good count yet for how much

damage the pesh were able to enflie inflict on this enemy in the course of this very long battle, but it knocked them back on the fly. yes, if you look at that location, the flot, the south of the flot is enemy-controlled territory. they are able to move. in this case they used some infiltration tactics, moving in small groups to assault positions, and then being able to conduct kind of a simultaneous assault along four different points along the flot there. yes, they do have some freedom to maneuver there as expected. it's territory we don't yet control. that being said, most of these forces came really out of mosul, which is kind of their center of gravity here in iraq.

thn muster, it doesn't look good for them. this is the most significant attack that the enemy is able to mount really since ramadi. again, if this is all they've got, things are going to begin to get worse and worse for this enemy. the canadians have discussed the fact that some canadians that were a little bit forward, they were at a headquarters behind the flot, behind the enemy lines, but the enemy was able to push through fairly rapidly in the enemy lines and the canadians were forced to engage with mortars, with mortar fired in an effort to help protect their partner forces. so no american forces exchanged any fire during the course of this fight. as you know, there are americans

advising and assisting at the division level with the peshmerga, but in this case there were no americans other than in the sky. >> so steve, dave martin, how close were the front lines were the american adviser? >> this didn't happen anywhere near any americans. in this sector, i don't think there's any americans. there may be some way back like 25, 30 kilometers, but this sector, this portion of the flot, not an american presence there. >> anybody else? >> could you run down a list of what aircraft were specifically used in that effort to turn back the assault by isis?

>> well, it was manned and unmanned, so fighters, bombers, and drones. i didn't bring a list with me unfortunately. it was five different coalitions. there was a wide variety. that might be something we can get. i don't have it. let me just look at my list here. unfortunately, i don't have that exact piece of information. again, so five coalition nations, 100 munitions expend d xpends -- expended, bombers and drones as well. >> you said the canadians were at the headquarters. how far back was that headquarters from the flot? typically, headquarters are not that close to a front line, are

they not? >> they're not. this was a penetration. this headquarters were the canadians were -- i don't want to give you a bad number. i'm going to kind of ballpark it here looking at this map to be about five miles, maybe four or five miles, little bit less than ten clicks. >> last call. steve, thank you very much. anything we forgot to ask you? anything we should have asked you? >> it was great talking to you. it was great. it was great]tqt seeing your colleagues that were here. i know a couple of others are here tonight so i'm going to have dinner with them. see you next week. >> happy holidays, steve.

thank you for your service. thank you, everybody. happy holidays. this sunday on c-span we'll replay abc news democratic presidential debate between candidates hillary clinton, bernie sanders, and martin o'malley from manchester, new hampshire. we'll bring it to you sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. next week is authors week on the "washington journal" with a featured nonfiction author monday through friday in a one-hour conversation with you starting monday december 21st, jeff smith on "mister smith goes to prison." tuesday december 22nd, john

whitehead. wednesday, december 23rd, 8:30 a.m. talking about her book "how the other half banks." at 8:30 a.m. eastern on thursday, december 24th, matthew green joins us to talk about "underdog politics, the minority party in the u.s. house of representatives." friday, greg shirley discusses his book "last act, the final years and emerging legacynald r" be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" during authors week starting december 21st. in his annual news conference russian president vladimir putin answered questions on domestic and foreign policy. he answered more than 30 questions from russian and foreign journalists in the

three-hour event. president putin addresses russia's tense relationship with turkey following the downing of a russian jet. this 75-minute portion from moscow is courtesy of english language news channel rt. >> translator: colleagues, friends, we regularly meet at the end of the year. this year just recently we had the state of the nation address, and i really don't know what else to tell you. in addition to what i already said there, i guess all the key things have been mentioned, but still, of course, there are issues that require clarification on our part. when i say on our part, i mean myself and my colleagues, the

president's office, the government of the russian federation, so let's start specifically with your questions straightaway. >> translator: last year paved the way for a good tradition. we started with a question from one of the most experienced reporters, but we also have alexander. i'd like to give the floor to him right now. >> translator: thank you very much. thank you very much, mr. putin, from the 11th conference, for the 11th q&a. i studied the reports of the previous press conference, and we discussed the difficult situation in the russian

economy, and we asked you how long it will take to overcome this challenging situation. and you said that in the worst-case scenario we would need about two years, quote/unquote. so it must be the end of 2016, the beginning of 2017, according to your estimate. now, has your mood changed? have your projections changed about the end of crisis, because the situation of the country is very difficult, and i'm sure you're well aware of that? what is your next forecast? thank you. >> translator: first of all, i'll tell you an old joke.

two guys meet, two friends meet, one says how are you. the other one says it is black and white patches. then they meet again six months later. what's the current patch? it's black. you said black was last time. no, that turned out to be whitened. it's black now. so that's kind of like the situation we are in today. when we talked last time and we discussed our plans for the future and what we were going to do to come out of the crisis and what our prospects were, we knew unfortunately our economy depended a lot on external factors, specifically traditional commodity exports,

prices, oil, gas. everything, fertilizers, it all depends very much on oil and gas prices, and wej@çu reestimate all those figures.

so i guess we'll have to make some further adjustments. still, i would like to use your question to demonstrate what we have come to. of course, after prices for fuel dropped, this affected other figures, other indicators, gdp dropped by 3.7%, as of decembdecembe december 7. the inflation rate is 12.3%. this is important, because i guess there will be other questions regarding our prospects and our situation today.

so to understand all these matters, you have to be aware of these figures. -- have dropped. capital investment dropped over the nine months by 5.7% at the same time. we know that on the whole, the russian economy has come out of the crisis or rather has passed the lowest point of the crisis, and we see some indications of stabilization in the economy. in september and october, gdp grew by 0.320.1%. from last month. and since may, production now has stopped dropping, and there

was slight growth. 0.2, 0.1%. in the forest, production grew actually 0.2%. there will be at least 3% growth. and this means that the support we've been providing for agriculture works. grain, crops grew, exceeded 100 million tons. so 1.3.4. this is very good work. i'd like to thank our familiarers for their work. the situation on the employment rate is stable. the unemployment is about 5.6%. we know that if we look back at 2008 this is positive trend.

also trade surplus grew. the trade turn over has dropped, but we still have trade surplus. $126.3 billion. our reserves are $364 billion, this is still an impressive figure. the sovereign debt of the russian federation dropped by 13% as compared to 2014. and capital outflow has reduced significantly. actually, in the first quarter of this year we had inflow, capital inflow, tax burden, this is very important. this is the, this is related to

sanctions. of course, it might be fogood t have access to international finance markets and use that money, but on the other hand, having too many loans also has negative effect, so despite all the restrictions we use, we fulfilled our obligations to our partners, including international financial institutions. we pay all our debts on time, in full. and the total combined, the total debt, aggregate debt, this includes debts by our companies and so on. this debt has reduced, and this is something positive. like i said, we actually saw capital inflow, this is also very positive. and i believe and experts agree

that that indicates that investors realize the actual situation in our economy. and they are getting interested in working in russia. even though the situation is difficult, the fuel industry, oil and gas are developing 4.6 gigawatt facilities will be launched next year. 20 have been launched already. last year we had an absolute record, but 4.6 is also very good figure. and in the next few years, we will continue developing this industry at the same pace, and this is also very important, because this means that the economy on the whole is growing as well. and we have enough energy for economic development. our infrastructure also develops seaports and so on.

received 19.5 million tons in addition. and the amount of cargo capacity through russian ports grew by 3%. what does this mean? our revenues from exports dropped, why? because of costs. but since we have more, more trade going through seaports, this means that the actual volume of trade has increased. and this is very positive. we develop our airports. in nine months our airports processed 126 million passengers. this is 2.5% more than last year. internal, domestic flights grew by 16% as well, despite the

difficult economic situation. we continue our responsible fiscal policy in the 12 months of this year. revenues were 12.2 trillion rubles. and expenditures 13.7 trillion rubles. we have a deficit of 9 trillion rubles. this is quite satisfactory for our current situation and the economy. more than satisfactory. to keep the federal budget balanced, we used our reserve funds, and this is also very important. our sovereign funds at this point are at the very good level. 11.8% of gdp. the reserve fund is 3.9 trillion

rubles. this is 5.3% of gdp. epts national welfare fund 4.7 trillion rubles. we've fulfilled all our social commitments this year. and we saw increase of population. the this is very good indicator. this means that people can plan their family, have children, and i'm very happy. the maternal benefit program, we have 6.5 million russian families who have received the

maternity benefit program. the maternity benefit program will stay the same as 2015. in most provinces we've provided the sufficient number of kindergartens. 97% of the amount needed. life expectancy at the end of this year will be over 71 years. they've fulfilled our commitments on pension indexing based on 2014 inflation rates, increasing pensions by 11.4%. social pensions have been increased by 10.3%. and you started by asking me about the situation last year and what we expect in the near

future. well, considering all this situation with the export prices, at this point, the government expects that the economy will begin to grow at 0.7% rate in 2016. then in 2017 will have 1.9% growth and in 2018, 2.9% increase. i will point out that this is all based on the oil price at $50 per barrel. we don't want to adjust our forecast and recalculate them, because this will reduce funding for social programs and the real sector. but of course the government

prepares scenarios for all kinds of situations. the government has to have all those plans available to them. and they have to be ready for any kind of scenario. of course, now our reserves fgd growth are not limited to exports. like i said, in the state of the nation address, we need import substitution. of course, this is not a cure-all, but this will help many companies modernize, use modern equipment, which will increase their productivity. and of course we have to enhancing our administrative mechanisms in the economy. we have to create attractive

environment for businesses. we need to support companies thein their work. so this is what we are going to focus on. thank you for your question. it gave me an opportunity to use all these materials i had prepared. >> translator: another question from a kremlin pool reporter. >> translator: mr. putin, you said we passed the low in the economy, but the situation and the economy's still very challenging. mr. putin has urged reforms, and this was echoed by your

ombudsman, he said that the policy rate of the central bank is too high, and we cannot get loans abroad, and so they don't have access to borrowing here. and we might meove to the, we might have the seam -- same model as venezuela. do you think the policy rate should can be increased? >> translator: plaus, yapplause. you get a lot of applause after your question. everybody wants the interest rate of the central bank to be lower. and, as we know, commercial banks also use as reference in issuing loans to companies.

but actually, this is not the only factor, but it is important. but boris does the right thing. he promotes the interests of businesses. and it's very important that we have such an institution, such a person. the very reason i created, i established this institution is because i wanted to be able to listen to different opinions, because it is so easy to get busy with your current work and forget about some important things. but first of all, i will answer your question directly. i support the policies of the central bank and the government. in macro economics. this is number one. number two. even though we may want to lower the interest rate, we cannot do this in an administrative way. we have to look at the actual situation and the economy. at the structure of our economy.

i often hear that in other countries they have different rates. of course they are lower. the very reason they do it, their problems are different, and their economic structure is different. we fight inflation, and they have a situation where they may have deflation. they have manufacturers who produce goods and are not able to sell them. this is their problem, but our problem is very different. for us to lower the interest rate, we don't need to fight with the central bank like, you know, they did in the planned economy in the soviet union. we need to help the government to bring down the inflation rate. and reduce inflation expectations. if, and devaluation expectations. if we do this, then, we can

reduce the interest rate of the central bank based on market economy, principles. and when it is possible to support the real sector, the central bank does it already. but we shouldn't push the central bank further, because this is not the only problem, but this is one of the key problems in fighting inflation. we may have problems with debt. what does the central bank do in addition to supporting the entire banking monetary system of the country? this is what it actually does. what else does the central bank do? it works together with the government on the so-called project funding programs when the government has certain

projects and there's a great number of project, tens of billions of, maybe 250 billion rubles. and banks provides funds for all those programs. for commercial banks, and then they fund those specific programs. this applies to investment projects. the central bank is also involved there. so there are different instruments that the central bank uses. and i think at this point, this is enough. >> translator: next question please. >> translator: news agency. mr. president, are you satisfied with the work of the government? are they taking the appropriate steps in the situation of the

crisis? maybe we could see a reshuffle? >> translator: no. you know, you probably i noticed over the years that i treat people very carefully. and i think that reshuffling the government, of course, not always, but of course it's not always connected. but you really don't need this reshuffling all the time. if somebody doesn't do a good job, this is my responsibility as well. i think it is my fault as well, to an extent. so there will be no major changes in the government at this, we think together with the government we consider how to enhance its structure, how to make the government more

efficient. how to hope the government focus on the most important areas, and we have certain plans like that. but it's nothing dramatic. it's not just some personal decisions. no. we just want to make the government work more fish t efficiently. you also asked if i'm happy with the government's performance. on the whole, yes. of course they could do a better job. but for example, early last year, we had the anti-crisis plan prepared, and we began to implement it. i don't remember the exact name of this plan, but essentially it's an anti-crisis plan. so, when we looked at it, 35% of this plan was not implemented. what does this mean? this is more than one third.

this means that in many different agencies, ministries, they didn't do enough to implement and respond to current challenges timely. but on the whole strategically like i said, the government works well on a whole and is sufficiently sufficient. >> translator: next question? >> my name is -- i'm from the business online newspaper. and i have to ask these questions. they've been prompted by the people of tatterstan. in your address, you said you

shouldn't equate hard-working people of turkey and the senior leadership of turkey. you said that there are good friends in turkey. and, as you know, tatterstan has had a lot of cultural, economic ties which are very strong with turkey. so what do we need to do? do we need to rupture these ties with the whole turkish world? and vladimir daminuteski, from the culture ministry said we need to break all the ties. so what do we do with those investors who account for a quarter of the investment in tatterstan. and i have another question. starting from the first of january 2016 -- should stop being called president, according to law, but this could

have a negative effect on the feelings of the tartars across the world. so would you insist on changing the title of the head of tartarstan? >> translator: i saw someone else wanting to ask the question in turkey, so i will respond to both questions. >> translator: annadole news agency. i would like to start that by saying in the state of the nation address you said we don't equate the people of turkey and some of the turkish elite who are directly responsible for the deaths of our service men in syria, but in daily life, the situation looks different,

because we, the turkish embassy in moscow receives complaints from college students who complain that they've been dismissed from their schools, turkish business men complain that they're discriminated against, and one more question on syria. we know your position on the future of the syrian president. russia says it's up to the people of syria to decide his fate whereas the u.s. and their allies insist that he has no political future. did you discuss this issue with john kerry when he was in moscow? and will you raise this issue again in new york? >> translator: turkish news agency j-con. relations between russia and turkey deteriorated rapidly, and nobody benefits from that. both sides will suffer because of that.

do you think maybe there is a third side, a third player who was involved in creating the situation recently? we know that an islamic association to fight isis was created. we know also there is the nato coalition and the russian/syrian coalition. so there are three coalitions to fight isis. is it so difficult to fight it? maybe there are some other plans involved? maybe isis is not the problem. >> translator: so i'll talk about syria later. and i'll go back to the conflict between bashar and turkey. bebelieve that the actions of the turkish authorities about,

towards our plane is not an unfriendly -- it's a hostile act, the downed and military aircraft and our service men died. what was specifically outrageous about it, if it was just an accident and the turkish authorities tried to say that they were not aware it was a russian plane, but what would they do, they should call us and explain. but then what do they do instead? they turn to brussels and said that they were offended. we were trying to threaten them? no. and they're trying to use nato as a shield. is that in nato's interest? actually, it turns out it's not in nato's interest. now my message to russian people

and to the people of turkey, it certainly is a tragedy and people died and why i was so offended. we didn't say no to cooperation. when i was at the g-20 summit in italia, we talked to the turkish leadership, and our turkish counterparts said there was a number of priorities and asked for compilation. i will not disclose the details, but they raised very sensitive issues for turkey. which are outside of international law. i mean, the decisions that the turkish authorities insisted on were outside of turkish law, and we said yes, we are ready to help you. we are ready to assist you in your efforts.

>> translator: well, i've never heard ever the turkmen people in syria. i know we have turkmen people living in the republic of turkmenstan. they could have used the existing channels of military, of cooperation between the militaries. . well, they could have indicated that this it's in their interest not to attack these people, but they never said anything. as i said, we were ready to cooperate on their sensitive issues with turkey, so i'm at a loss. why did they want to do it? so what was their goal? did they think we're going to runaway from it? russia's not a country like this. we've increased our presence. ramped up the number of aircraft

and now we have a 400 anti-aircraft system. t the bukka systems. so the big question is why. so you asked about a third party, well, there might -- i get your hint, but we are not aware of that, but if someone in the turkish leadership wanted to lift someone boots in the, someone else's, the american leadership, well, it's up to them. maybe they had an agreement, a tacit agreement that we will

down the russian plane and you will turn a blind eye to us invading part of iraq and occupying a part of iraq. maybe they had an agreement like that. we're not aware of that. but in any way, they created this kind of entanglement. and from the analysis that i've made, i believe that isis is a secondary issue right now. so i'd like to share my observations with you. earlier, you know, iraq was invaded and destroyed. and there was a vacuum that followed. and we saw that there was some oil trafficking taking place. and the situation like that was there for years. and oil trafficking takes place on an industrial scale, and then to protect this illegal exports

and production, they had to, they had to use some military force. and it's very easy to use isis. and you can use someone exploit someone as an actor. as a proxy. so they started to recruit people and send people, and i believe though is t believe this is the way isis was created. and now they needed to start for logistics. when we started to bomb convoys, we see that they only move at night, and they only move in small convoys of 15 cars. but most of the trucks now move via iraq and via kurdistan in iraq.

and i'll ask the defense minister to show you one picture we've identified, an area with 11,000 trucks, tanker trucks transporting oil and petroleum products. so if there's a third party, i'm not sure, maybe they didn't get approval from anyone, you know, but the turkish authorities have been criticized for a high level of islamization in the country, and maybe if turkey wanted to show the europeans and americans that we are islamists, but we modern-day islamists. like reagan said, he's a bastard, but he's an arab type of bastard. maybe it's happened like that. but anyway, there's nothing good

that's come out of it. even if they had any goals, they've not achieved those goals. i now referring to the goals of turkey, they've only exacerbated the situation. now going back to the turkish people living in russia. certainly, you need to sustain ties with the nations that are ethnically close to it. certainly the turkey people living here in russia are citizens of russia, and i also said that we continue to maintain good ties with the people of turkey, and they will continue to be our friends, and we need to maintain contact with them. but, as for the current turkish leadersh leadership, it's very difficult or impossible to agree on

issues, and even in those areas where we stay we are ready to cooperate, they will stab us in the back due to reasons which we don't understand, so i don't see any prospects of cooperation at the state level. but as for the humanitarian area, there are prospects, although there's also some issues and challenges. and the turkish leadership got what they did not expect and will have to take some restrictive areas in the economy and in other areas, and this has to do with tourism for instance. so they would roll in their grave if they saw what was going on with islamization in turkey, we told our partners, we said we don't do like that towards

turkey. you know, these militants get medical treatment. they are guarded. and then they use turkish passports to opinion trapenetra territory. and then wle will have to track them down in our big cities. so that's what we will have to do, just like taking other steps to ensure our national security. now as to the title of the head of tartarstan. well, as we say, you can ca a person whatever you want, but the most important thing is not to harm that person. for tartarstan, i doesn't think it will offend someone to undermine someone's interests. as you know, north kcaucasus

people might be very offended. but if the chechen republic says russia needs to have one president, one person that's called president, that was the choice of the chechen people. we will respect any decision made by the tartarstan. so it's up to you to decide on the title of your president. >> translator: let's go to anton. >> i >> translator: i forgot your question, i wrote down your question. on the future of the syrian president, i have repeatedly said and i will do it once again. we will never agree to a situation when some outside player would impose their decisions, would dictate who

should be the leader. that doesn't make any sense and runs counter to international law. we discussed that with state secretary kerry. we maintain our position. we believe it's only up to the people of syria to decide who their leader should be or what should be the standards and rules. so, in general, and i will say an important thing. in general, we support the initiative of the united states to draft the u.n. security counsel resolution on syria. and the state secretary brought this draft resolution. overall, we are satisfied with it. and i'm sure that the syrian authorities will also agree with it. and now this has been a years

long conflict. it's a bloody conflict which has claimed many lives. and certainly, we need compromises, but compromises should be made from both sides. so there are acceptable provisions. but it could be improved further. this was the initiative of the u.s. this is the initiative of barack obama. it means that and the oust is very concerned over what's happening in yemen, iraq, syria and all over the middle east. and we will do everything to resolve this crisis and any solutions must be acceptable to all the sides. but the sequence should be as follows. we need to work together first to draft a constitution.

they must set out the mechanism to, mechanism of future action and it must have credibility with every plan. and based on these democratic measures, it's up to the syrian people to decide on the future form of governance and who their next leader should be. >> translator: to continue with syria, do you have a clear plan for syria, or are we just being reactive, turkey downs bomber, and we increase our military task force in syria. when will our operation in syria be over? what will be the final point of this operation? what is the final goal? and do you think it is possible to resolve the syrian conflict politically? you mentioned that already, actually.

>> translator: that was what i was trying to respond to. number one, we believe it's possible. number two, we see no other solution to this problem. this is inevitable, and we'll have to do it sooner rather than later that we'll be fewer casualties. fewer threats, including for europe and the u.s. as now you remember that isis penetrated the u.s. and the law enforcement admitted that the san bernardino shooting was a terrorist act. so the sooner we do, the better for everyone. 14 people were killed in the san bernardino shooting. so there's only political solution. do we have a plan? yes. i just laid it out for you. and in major points, it coincides with the vision proposed by the u.s.

we need first to come together and work on the constitution. then we need to establish mechanisms of control over the next election. then we have the election. and the election results must be acknowledged. similarly, there are a lot of grievances. someone likes this group. someone likes another group. someone doesn't work, doesn't want to work with the syrian government. but certainly, everyone needs to find some strength to move towards each other to meet each other halfway. as for the military operation that russia's conducting in syria, as i said, we will support the offensives of the syrian army. we will continue to do it until the syrian army needs to conduct those operations. now, as i said, this was the idea of francois hollande to

combine the efforts of the syrian government army and some parts of the opposition forces against isis. so partially, we have been able to do it. we have now, and we're in contact with the units of the syrian opposition, that's armed opposition. that's a, willing to fight isis and are almost doing it and are practically doing it. and we support their efforts with our bombers, just like we do that when we support the offensives of the syrian government army. we can see that the political process has now been launched. so when the syrian government says that we should lay down the arms and we should start negotiations, well, we don't want to be, to be involved any

longer. so the sooner it happens the better. >> translator: sergey lavrov, i'd like to add what my colleagues from turkey and anton said. do you think it's too late now to talk to turkey? is there anything they're doing to foc to fix the situation. and since we have increased our task force, maybe we should make it a permanent military base in the middle east. >> i don't want to speak on behalf of the heads of the other states. if they feel they need to do something, it's up to them. we have not seen any is stestepn

by them. that's it. now back to your second part on the military base. you know, we have different e opinions on that. some say in the u.s. and the eu that your interests will be taken into account of. that's when they speak to russia. do we actually need a military base? what is a military base now that you think of it? it requires a lot of infrastructure. you need to invest into it. so currently, we have russian aircraft. temporary modules. where they sleep, where they eat. you know, we can put it all together and go back to our airfields for a permanent military base. it's a completely different story. some say we need to have this military base. but i'm not so certain about it. i talked to our european counter

parts, and they are telling me, and you want to have a military base, i say why? they say you want to keep everything under control. but do we actually need to keep things under control there is th this so we have not had any interpaid yare eye missiles. we destroyed them. the u.s. destroyed their stockpile too. but what about their sea-based and aircraft based intermediate range missiles? we now have those missiles. so we have the sea-based, which the distance, the range is 1500 meters. we also have the aircraft based ones. [ applause ] the distance is enough to reach

the targets that we need. so we need to think about it. maybe we could stay there for some time but it's hard for me to say whether it really makes sense to establish a permanent base. we'll think about that. >> translator: let's just limit it to one question per person. >> translator: what about ukraine? it's our fraternitial nation, and i continue to say that's our brothers. thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a question even think we are not turks. we are ukrainians. mr. president, you said more than once that there are no

russian military personnel in eastern ukraine. i would like to say hello to you from -- are you going to exchange them for -- and other people? and if possible, my second question, the minsk agreements are going to expire soon. neither party has fulfilled their obligations under the minsk agreement, so what will happen on january 1st? will you resume your offensive? or will you offer negotiations? or maybe you will forget about ukraine for a time. thank you. >> translator: as for exchange, we never said that there are no people who might be doing sol

some of the things in the in the area. but that doesn't mean that there are regular russian forces. you mentioned some of the people, two russians that you want to swap for someone which are here in russia, and this list that you mentioned of ukrainians is very long. so any exchange can be an equal one. you can only swap an equal number of people for an equal number of people there. so certainly, we need to talk to our colleagues. we need to listen to what the president of ukraine says. we need to free people, which are detained by both sides and primarily that refers to the people from the east of ukraine and the ukrainian service men

detained on those territories. but, as i said, you can only swap an equal amount of people. it's not a secret that the ukrainian authorities believe that, consider those who have been douetained, the people fro the southeast, those who are in jail, they are criminals. they're considered criminals. not worth of swapping and the people disagree with that. we need to use the approach proposed by petro per shen coe. we support the initiative to treat everyone equally. now as for january 1st, the

deadline for the minsk agreements. we believe that our economic ties with ukraine will worsen, because we, we're forced to cancel the free trade sozone agreement with the ukraine. if the eu asks me not to exclude ukraine from this free trade agreement. hoping for the fact that we can sort it out they said that we will have negotiations during the year to adjust to those new economic realities.

so they sense that there will be adjustments made in the form of additional protocols which would alleviate our concerns. t the concerns of the russian federation about that association agreement between ukraine and eu, something that would ensure our economic interests. before july, we asked the eu hundreds of times for a contact. and only these contacts started only in july. so the first contact started only in july, and they didn't yield any results. we met with the head of the european commission. we met with the chancellor of germany in paris and discussed this issue.

our goal was to maintain our economic ties with ukraine, but ukraine is a member of that free trade zone agreement, and the tariff rate is 0. and ukraine uses the same technical rules that russia and other countries are using. and now ukraine's pulling back from their regime and they want to adopt the european rules and regulations, and it says that all the ukrainian market must comply with the standards and regulations of the eu, but our goods do not reform to these requirements yet. so what do you do with our goods? are you going to throw away russian goods from the ukrainian

market? and it's also said that ukraine has the right to keep both regulations regulations. it has the right, but it doesn't mean that it's going to do it. it just has the right. and if the document says that a subcommission could be established, could be established again, it's not a requirement to establish. and they wanted us to keep all the prermss, all the privileges for ukraine. it's not rocket science. you don't need to be an expert. it says that our customs rules across the cis must be conformed to harmonize with the european ones. and i told my counter parts in paris, you know, we had a long-standing don't with belarus and kazakhstan on those rules and regulations. and now i told my counterparts

in paris, you want us to change all the rules and regulations in one year? it's not possible. it just requires more time. it also says we need to switch to sanitairy standards of the e. even if we can do it, it takes time. it takes investment. and it's investment to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. and in paris, my counterpart says that the european standards are better. yes, that's true. and we are willing to do it. we need the money. we need investment. and they, as you know, they banned access of russia to external markets. so they told me they didn't get

acquainted with the documents that they sent to us. and i told them, well, you didn't read those documents which you sent to us, and you want us to say yes and sign those documents? now we don't want to introduce any sanctions against ukraine. that's my message. we just switch from a free-trade agreement to a prevgstial regime. it means ukraine would get the same rights as other countries. what would that mean in practice? it means that currently, tariffs are zero in trade between ukraine and russia. but the average tariff would be around 6%. it could be 3 in one category of

goods. it could be at any in another category. we were fighting against this, but they didn't want to heed our call, and it happened just like i told you. that was their style. that was their tone, but we'll continue to work together, even under the circumstances that we currently see. now, to be honest, we don't want to exacerbate the conflict. we want to resolve this conflict as soon as possible. but, you know, people -- [ applause ] it should not be done at the expense of the people in the east of ukraine. they should not be destroyed. now, if you look at the results, election results in eastern ukraine, the opposition got most of the seats.

43% voted for the opposition in those areas of the luhansk and dounetsk regions, so we very muh hope he will listen to their call. we very much hope we will have a straightforward, open dialog. everyone's saying, come on, russia, you need to implement the minsk agreement. but look at the document. the ukrainian constitution must be changed. and it must be implemented and also agreed with the people of dunbass. and they also have the rule of special status of dunbass and other regions, so is it on a permanent basis?

they say yes, but i'm telling everyone, this year was passed for only three years, and that has passed. they asked petro poroshenko, is that true? and they said yes. this must be made on a permanent basis. it was passed by the parliament and together with the law, they passed article ten, which says that it will only be implemented after the election. so, again, it's been delayed. and so they're telling us, okay, the minsk agreements call for the passing of that law, and we passed that law. so it's just formal compliance. so we are ready to convince,

let's work together. we're ready to convince the people in the southeast of ukraine so that there's a compromise. we're willing to do to, but it's now up to the ukrainian counterparts to have the same desire. >> translator: interfax. mr. putin, you just said that russia's stepped up its military presence in syria. you mentioned the s-400 anti-aircraft defense system. but we are under sanctions. oil is getting cheaper. we're also having economic crisis on our hands. will russia have enough finances for that? because we need to spend on the increase of the military presence. there are so many problems, so

many issues, and certainly, i don't only mean finances. it's, and, you know, sometimes it's easier to stop a war than to finish it. >> translator: a, we did not start this war. we are just conducting operatio operations using our air force. our air defense systems, our intelligence and this is no serious burden for the budget. some of the funds we intended to spend on military training and the military exercises, we just channelled those funds into our

operations area. we have to add an a little bit of money, but this is an insignificant figure for the budget. you know that we have a large scale military maneuvers. for example, center or east, thousands of personnel, thousands of troops moved from one place to another. hundreds of aircraft are used. so we will just use some of those funds for our operations in syria. this is the best military exercise you can imagine. so actually, we can continue this for a long time, and this will be not that much of a burden for our economy. and other issues you mentioned. yes, this is really a problem. i mean, economic issues we face

today, but i already told you what we are go being to do. and we talked publicly about that. so what can i say. going back to the economy, like i said earlier, we need to input substitution. we need to modernize our economy, enhance our business climate. generate demand. this is also an important economic driver. we need a whole number of measures that the government plans, and we will do all that. as for the new american president in well, we'll have to see who that person would be. but regardless of who that, of who is elected, we are willing,

we are ready to develop our ties with the u.s. and the recent visit by the state secretary indicated that washington is also ready to move forward to work together with us on points of convergence. on those issues where which we can only resolve together. it's a common sense approach. we have never tried to isolate ourselves. and it's up to the people of the u.s. to elect a president. while it's washington who's trying to lecture us on who to elect or what procedures to use. and, you know, it's dangerous. there's an observer who comes closer to 5 meters to the polling box, then they could be jailed. so it's very dangerous to tell anything to the u.s. people.

but we will work with anyone that the american people's going to elect. >> translator: hello, mr. president. i have two questions. for the first question is about egypt. when will you allow for russian tourists to visit egypt? and my second question, two days ago, saudi arabia said they have a new islamic alliance. i think this is a sunni islamist alliance. and the problem is that this will be an anti-russian alliance, and what will happen to shia muslims now? and turkey is part of this alliance. so i would like to ask you, how

would you, what would you say about this new alliance and egypt? >> translator: first, i'll talk about tourism. the decision to restrict travels to egypt, air passenger traffic to egypt were not done due to the fact that we distrust egyptian leadership. it's not a political decisions. all we want is to ensure security and safety for russian citizens. this is a message to russians. the regulatory, the law enforcement special services in egypt are not on par, are not able to match the threat of terrorism be be be be be be be

and certainly it's a threat to you, it's a threat to egypt. the prime minister of egypt has demonstrated courage in fighting though threat, but it takes time to curb these problems. once we have the mechanisms up and running, that would ensure security for russian citizens, we will ease the restrictions. we are working on that with our egyptian counterparts. we need to have our representatives at every stage, starting from checking, loading, catering. but certainly, the official egypt. authorities ought to comply with our concern.

it's our common concern. and we need to find common solutions to these challenges. as for the islamic military alliance set up in saudi arabia, another coalition. we do not think that this coalition will have an anti-russian bias. while we don't treat tur khai as a hostile country to us, they made a hostile act to us, but we don't treat the turkey as a hostile state. and our relations got sour. and that's true. i don't see a clear path forward, but the ball is not on our side. the ball is on the turkish side. but there's also egypt as part of that coalition and many other countries. the saudi arabia initiated the

establishment of this coalition. we have our differences in terms of resolving the syria crisis on some of the issue. but there are months of convergence. we are in contact with this country. i met the king of saudi arabia. we're also have regular meetings at the level of the foreign ministry of the defense, level of the defense ministry. we're also considering some joint projectes es in military cooperation. it's worth billions of dollars. so we don't even consider this alliance as anti-russian. we need to combine our efforts

and not to, not try to use the resources in different ways. and, you know, the u.s. also set up a coalition, and most of the countries are part of that initial coalition, so saudi arabia's also part of that coalition, so why create a new coalition? the u.s. has this coalition already. do they have their own plan? or maybe they have some internal differences. that might be possible. why? because there are regional interests at play. there are champion interests of fig -- common interesting of fighting terrorism and regional interests of fighting terrorism. we saw those horrendous acts of

terrorism in paris. also the u.s. is facing terrorist attacks which happened recently when 14 people were killed. we need to come together in fighting terrorist organizations whatever their mottos may be. and we very much hope that this new alliance will pursue a common interest and will work out effective mechanisms of control.