Today, May 22, Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov held talks with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. The press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs forwarded a message from the Telegram channel of the Foreign Minister.

“We had a warm and fruitful meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov today in Moscow. We emphasized the unprecedented upward trend in mutually beneficial partnership, and also outlined a number of areas and promising areas for further enrichment of our ties,” Saidov wrote there.

The remarks by the Russian foreign minister were published by the press service of the Russian foreign ministry.

“As for our bilateral relations, we are pleased to state, as our presidents did, that the bilateral ties are intensively developing in all areas, despite the sanctions. In 2022, the two-way trade grew by 26%, approaching $9 billion. We are see a positive trend in trade this year – in January-February, there is a growth of more than 4% compared to the same period in 2022,” Lavrov said.

According to him, today about 12,000 citizens of Uzbekistan are studying at Russian universities.

“We appreciate the attention given to the Russian language and education in Uzbekistan. You have 14 branches of Russian universities,” he said.

Lavrov also recalled that, in accordance with the updated Constitution, Shavkat Mirziyoyev issued a decree on early presidential elections on July 9 this year.

“We are convinced that the preparation and the holding of the election campaign will be held at a high organizational level. For our part, we will facilitate so that Uzbek citizens living in the Russian Federation, labor migrants and your other countrymen will have every opportunity to express their free will. In this regard, we have close cooperation with your embassy and with other diplomatic institutions of Uzbekistan in the Russian Federation. We will do our best to make this event a success,” he concluded.