PRESIDENT PUTIN: FAIR WORLD ORDER CAN BE BUILT THROUGH JOINT EFFORT ONLY








MOSCOW, March 12, RIA Novosti - Ambassadors of ten foreign countries today presented their credentials to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a ceremony in the Grand Kremlin Palace.


	President Putin said at the ceremony that Russia "is firmly determined to maintain friendly relations with all members of the international community". He emphasised that "there cannot be any secondary tasks or areas for Russia here". "Cooperation based on partnership and equality and serving the interests of stability on the planet is our absolute foreign policy priority," the President said.


	The Russian leadership, he said, is convinced that with world processes becoming global, "it is especially important to use collective and coordinated approaches in solving pressing international problems".


	Putin said it is necessary to strengthen the UN and other influential international forums in a search for "efficient answers to new challenges of our time"  -- proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, space militarisation, terrorism, international crime, and spread of narcotics. He stressed that "no state, whatever its geographical location or its political and economic priorities, is safe against these threats".


	Putin indicated that only "jointly, by coordinating our efforts, will we be able to build a fair world order - the basis of secure and dynamic development of human civilisation in the third millennium".


	Putin expressed confidence that the new foreign ambassadors to Russia will contribute "to further growth of diversified interstate relations in the interests of our countries and of the entire world community".


	The credentials were handed in by ambassadors of Finland, Syria, Mauritania, Portugal, Guinea, Morocco, Nepal, South Africa, Paraguay, and Malta.