President Omar Bongo Of Gabon To Visit Moscow

Omar Bongo, President of the Gabonese Republic, is due to arrive in Moscow on an official visit on Monday. RIA Novosti learned from the Russian Foreign Ministry that the head of Gabon will be received by President Putin of Russia on Tuesday and will hold talks with the speakers of the two chambers of the Russian parliament -- Gennady Seleznev, Speaker of the State Duma, and Yegor Stroyev, Speaker of the Federation Council. It is expected that crowning the visit will be signing of a joint statement on bilateral cooperation by the two leaders. The Foreign Ministers will sign a Protocol on consultations between the foreign policy departments of Russia and Gabon. Special attention will be paid to bilateral relations. Both Moscow and Libreville are not satisfied with the current state of their trade and economic cooperation which actually is not making any progress. The visit by the President of Gabon is expected to stimulate cooperation in the extraction and refining of oil and valuable wood varieties, as well as in power engineering, transport and fisheries. The president of Gabon is accompanied by a large number of members of the country's cabinet of ministers. Russia and Gabon have similar stands on such international issues as maintenance of strategic stability, the formation of a new multi-polar world order. Gabon also fully supports Russia's disarmament initiatives. The Gabonese leadership considers the events in Chechnya to be Russia's domestic problem and supports Moscow's efforts to resolve it in the context of preserving the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Gabonese President's plane will land at Vnukovo-2 airport at 1 p.m. on Monday. In the evening of the same day Omar Bongo is planning to visit the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. The ceremony of conferring an honorary doctor's degree on Omar Bongo will be held at the Russian People's Friendship University on Tuesday, April 24. On Wednesday Omar Bongo will meet with representatives of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. In the afternoon the President of Gabon is planning to visit Star City, the training centre for Russian cosmonauts. At 6 p.m. of the same day the Gabonese President will fly to St. Petersburg.

Visit www.rian.ru for RIA 'Novosti' news.