this saturday at 10 a.m. eastern, c-span radio will the states, asom part of alaska weekend. listen to the alaska house and senate debate on whether to use the alaska permanent fund to close the state budget deficits. an annual dividend to every state resident for oil revenues. hear from the governor and residents, and also an interview with the juneau empire reporter, james brooks. >> russian president vladimir putin told diplomats in moscow to presidentposal trump to hold a referendum to help resolve the conflict in eastern ukraine. he made the proposal in helsinki. he was joined on stage and

introduced by the russian foreign minister. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] >> we start the ninth meeting of russia's ambassadors and plenipotentiary representatives. ♪

>> 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 condition tent of what we do, his assessment of our actions

and also social support for our diplomats. 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. and we will always do our best to prove up to the task. we would also thank the government of the russian federation, members are present here working together. we will be able to create necessary conditions in international for our country to development. i give the floor to the president of the russian federation, mr. vladimir putin. president 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 veterans of the diplomatic service for your contribution in developing international work. 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 social and economic tasks at hand, improve quality of life for our people. our people want russia to be a strong, independent country. we are open to having people partnership with our countries and regional 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

c.s.u. share our views on the basic principles of the new world order. these countries constitute a majority of the 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 that ref -- 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 work in the process.

year, we held syrian national wasogue in sochi, which hugely successful, creating preconditions for legitimate restoration of the syrian. the next step would be introduction of the new under theon agents of the united nations. humanitarian efforts to support syria are always important. this is 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 actions will continue further. we also have negative examples where agreements we have reached together are abandoned. for example, i'm referring to the steps taken by the united states in withdrawing from the joint comprehensive plan of action. currently it is extremely important to reserve this and deal andve this 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 force. we still believe that the minsk agreements remain the only foundation for a peaceful resolution of the situation. we don't do this just for the sake of some abstract greatness or to create problems for others. our goal is to create conditions for our country's economic development within the next few years. russia should secure a place among the top five economic superpowers 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, bringing in new technology. overcome existing barriers that stand in the way of russian companies working abroad. the principles of competition and openness are often replaced with protectionism in international trade today. it's replaced with political expediency, trade being politicized. russia's foreign policy on the country should be more economically oriented and more rational. this particularly important to create good neighborly relations. security and stability around our country. the eurasian economic union is a

key integration project for russia. we are happy our partners are working together with us and this work is quite effective. we use growth 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 will start up with india. we have prepared a free trade agreement with iran. on the whole we have about 50 treaties being prepared with euro-sec. we have good prospects in working together with china.

of onehina initiative belt, one road inw orking with euro -- in working with euro-sec complement each other. harmonoizing this project will provide a strong foundation for a greater asian 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 difficulty 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 project we was with europe including, for example, northstorm two 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. 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 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 toward this goal. the cooperation with russian -- i would like to say a few words. certain forces in the united states would be happy to sacrifice u.s.-russia relations for the sake of their political

goals. u.s. companies are losing millions in contracts and jobs. there cooperation with russian partners. jobs.ds of thousands of 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 heig hts when we talked about syria. it seems like they're not interested in that. they're also willing to sacrifice the issues of their own security. i'd like to point out to you in 2021 the new start treaty will expire. we can live without 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 extend the treaty. otherwise the treaty. a half, it will just run out, 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 there are forces in the united states that only care about their own private interests. these are the kind of people who

are pitiful, 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, not to praise someone or 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. russia is open to develop context 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 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. 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. we had made a number of important decisions. at the same time, on some of the -- on the subject of sensitive issues, salary, social guarantees for your family members, housing conditions, we haven't been able to fully resolve those issues yet and i would like the cabinet, the government, to pay special attention to these matters and not deal with them in a bureaucratic manner. we need to provide proper conditions for our diplomats to perform their professional functions. this is extremely important. this concludes the first part of my speech and the next part will take place behind closed doors without the media.

live on friday on c-span, the discussion about the impact of the u.s. withdrawal from the iran nuclear agreement, hosted by the middle east policy council, at 10 a.m. eastern. house insurance officials discussed the role of the individual health insurance market. nation's governors are meeting in santa fe, new mexico. watch the national governors association meeting starting at 11 a.m. eastern on c-span two. on cyber security posted by the "washington post," on c-span3. ofsunday night, the daughter an american diplomat discusses her memoir, "daughter of the cold war." >> i meant vladimir putin in 1991. >> was he deputy mayor then?

>> yes. i had a meeting with the real mayor. he was called away. they substituted the deputy mayor, vladimir putin. i was annoyed, because i was not meeting with the mayor. i knew he had been in the kgb and i was negative about it all. he came in and he was equally negative. he did not want to meet with claiming ton woman run a business. i think he was very suspicious of women. hadad no gallantry, and he the coldest eyes i had ever seen. very big, blue, cold eyes. all i could think of is, what would happen if he was interrogating me?

c-span, where history unfolds daily. 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. to bring youtinue unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> house speaker paul ryan joined the american enterprise institute today for a discussion on populism and identity politics. he talked about how new media and technology have contributed ribalism that he says runs counter to more traditional republican beliefs. this is about a half-hour.