country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. putinn president vladimir spoke to russian diplomats about his country's foreign-policy goals. we will have that next on c-span. then house speaker paul ryan talking about politics, the future of the party. and the consumer financial protection bureau and the export, import bank, testifying at a senate ranking confirmation hearing. -- banking confirmation hearing. we will have that in an hour. vladimir putin told diplomats he made a proposal to president trump to hold a referendum to help results the conflict in theern ukraine -- resolve conflict in eastern ukraine. president putin was joined onstage and introduced by the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov.

min. lavrov: mr. president, colleagues, i would like to -- ♪

min. lavrov: mr. president, colleagues, i would like to express my sincere gratitude to the president of the russian federation, vladimir putin, for paying so much attention to the diplomatic service in terms of the content of what we do, his assessment of our actions and also social support for our diplomats.

in answering whatever questions may arise in relation to that. we understand that given the current situation in the international arena, the responsibility that lies on all the diplomatic workers and diplomatic missions in implementing the policy defined by the president is immense. we will do, we will always do our best to prove up to the task. we would also thank the government of the russian federation, members present here working together. we will be able to create necessary conditions in international arena for our country to development. i give the floor to the president of the russian federation, mr. vladimir putin. pres. putin: thank you. colleagues, i am happy to see

you at our traditional meeting. first of all i would like to thank the leadership of the foreign ministry, all the diplomats of the -- all the veterans of the diplomatic service for your contribution in developing international work. all the diplomats of our diplomatic mission work together in a well coordinated way. given the current situation in the world, russia has been consistently pursuing an independent and well balanced foreign policy. russia's involvement in international affairs is based on our key national interests. to create favorable and safe conditions for our country's breakthrough development to address immense social and economic tasks at hand, improve the quality of life for our people.

our people want russia to be a strong, independent country. we are open to have equal partnership with all countries and reaching out alliances. being a permanent member of the u.n. security council, russia will always remain committed to the basic principles of this organization's sovereignty, equality noninterference in the , affairs of other states, and fair resolution of all conflicts. working collectively based on international law, we can address the most complex international issues. our pursuit of global security and stability countering new threats and challenges is in much demand worldwide. our allies share -- our allies in the csu share our views on the basic principles of the new world order.

these countries constitute a majority of the planet's population. this is the approach that we will use in resolving international crisis. in syria, we were able to defeat international terrorism, isis, and other terrorist groups. thus we were able to preserve the statehood of syria and conditions for the restoration of the syrian economy and bringing back refugees. once again i would like to thank our military for their professionalism and of course diplomats too. they were also very much involved in what we're doing in syria. russia is doing good work in the process. earlier this year we held syrian national dialogue congress in

sochi which was hugely successful creating preconditions for legitimate restoration of the syrian. the next step would be introduction of the new constitution under the united nations. of course humanitarian efforts to support syria are always important. we are very much involved in that. this would be important for syria, for this region as a whole, and for many other countries around the world because this would decrease the immigration burden on european countries. collective efforts and dialogue, it's what russia has always proposed for the korean peninsula as well. we work together in china to prepare a plan to normalize the situation there. we are happy that the principles proposed by us proved useful. the parties came to the

negotiation table and abandoned actions which could have caused dramatic consequences. recent positive trends, which are partly due to the efforts taken by president trump, will continue further. but we also have examples where negative agreements we have reached together are abandoned. for example, i'm referring to the step taken by the united states in withdrawing from the joint comprehensive plan of action. currently it is extremely important to preserve this deal and prevent uncontrolled growth of tensions in the middle east. and the situation in southeastern ukraine remains complex. the reasons are the same. the current ukrainian authorities refuse to honor the commitments they have made in

resolving this conflict. they are unwilling to engage in a dialogue with their own citizens, instead relying on brute force. we still believe that the minsk agreements remain the only foundation for a peaceful resolution of the situation. what we are doing in the international arena, we don't do this just for the sake of some abstract greatness or to create problems for others. our key goal, once again i repeat is to create conditions , for our country's economic development within the next few years. russia should secure a place among top economic superpowers five in the world and improve living standards of our people. to achieve these strategic goals, we have to take advantage of all the opportunities that we have in the international arena. we should be practical, securing

new markets, expanding our support bringing in new , technology, overcome existing barriers that stand in the way of russian companies working abroad. the principle of competition and openness is often replaced with protectionism in international trade today. markets are replaced with political expediency, trade is being politicized. russia's foreign policy on the contrary should be more economically oriented and more rational. it is particularly important to neighborlys of good relations, security and stability around our country. the eurasian economic union is a key integration project for russia. we are happy that our partners are working together with us in

europe, and this work is quite effective. we are using integration opportunities to stimulate the growth of the economies of all member states, and we want people and companies to feel the practical result of this work. we have a free trade zone with vietnam. we are engaged in talks with israel. serbia, singapore, soon we'll start up with india. we have prepared a free trade agreement with iran. on the whole we have about 50 treaties being prepared with [indiscernible] we have good prospects in working together with china. in large europe signed an agreement with china on trade china, europe,h

and china's initiative of one belt one road complement each other. this project will provide a strong foundation for a greater eurasian partnership for economic cooperation free from all sorts of barriers. this is the logic we should also use in developing our relations with the european union. despite current difficulties, the e.u. remains one of our key trade partners. we have a lot of economic interests in common with the e.u. for decades, we have been developing together our transport infrastructure. all the business projects that we have with europe including, 2, are commercial. there is no political subtext to it. the key to ensuring security and stability in europe is in expanding cooperation and rebuilding trust, not in deploying new military bases and military infrastructure close to

russian borders which is what is happening right now. such aggressive actions posing direct threat to russia, we will respond to them appropriately. to our colleagues who seek escalation, trying to draw ukraine or georgia into nato should consider the consequences of their irresponsible policies. what we need today is constructive, positive agenda bringing our positions closer. this is what we discussed in my meeting with u.s. president donald trump. even though our views are vastly different, we both agreed that relations between russia and the u.s. are unsatisfactory . in many ways, they are even worse than during the cold war. it would be naive to think that problems that have been accumulated over the years can be resolved within just a

few hours. nobody expected that of course. still we started on our way towards this goal. it is good that we finally had an opportunity to have a proper meeting. we will have to wait and see how events will unfold, especially considering that certain forces in the u.s. want to play down the results of the helsinki summit. i would like to say now a few , ad lib in a way. we know there are certain forces in the united states which can sacrifice, which will be happy to sacrifice u.s.-russian relations for the sake of their domestic, political goals. they are ready to sacrifice their businesses. u.s. companies are losing

millions in contracts, losing jobs. their cooperation with russian tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs. they are willing to sacrifice the interest of allies in europe and in the middle east. for example, i'm referring to israel. we also talked about golan heights when we talked about syria, and it seems like they're not interested in that. they're also willing to sacrifice the issues of their own security. i would like to point out to you that in 2021, the new start treaty will expire. we can live without this treaty, -- this treaty. just a few years ago we could have lived without this treaty, but we did the right thing and signed this treaty, and we need

to start working today to prolong to extend the treaty. ,otherwise in a year and a half, it will just run out its course , and there will be no more treaty any longer. when i talk about these forces in the united states, you know, this is not in line with our political philosophy because we've always been taught that people who work for the state in the interest of their nation should first and foremost think about the fundamental principles -- fundamental values of the country, but no. there are forces in the united states that only care about their own private interests. these are the kind of people who are pitiful, patty, -- petty,

despicable people as they were described in soviet books. but on the contrary, i think these people are quite smart sometimes. for example, when they want to feed their stories to people . they use this this is not to praise someone or to criticize someone. the reason i mention this is because i want us to take this into account in our practical work when we deal with americans. these are just facts that we face today. still russia is open to develop contacts with the united states as long as they're based on equality. this is not something that just our two countries need. the whole world needs this. being two nuclear superpowers, we have special responsibility for global security and

stability. now i'd like to say a few words on a total -- couple of different subjects. the world cup has just completed. we had many world leaders visiting our country and also hundreds of thousands of football fans from all over the world. they saw a different kind of russia russia that is open to , the world, russia that is friendly. this is obviously a breakthrough. this is what we call popular democracy, and you made an important contribution to that as well. congratulations. thank you. colleagues, of course, the burden on the foreign ministry, on the diplomatic mission, will only keep increasing more and more. but i would like to assure you that russia's leadership will always do everything necessary to support you, take care of your material situation, protect people who work in the foreign ministry.