Argentina Has Great Expectations For Macri-Putin Meeting At G20 Summit - Diplomat

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Buenos Aires has "many expectations" for the upcoming meeting between Argentine President Mauricio Macri and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, where a range of important bilateral agreements are also due to be signed, deputy chief of Argentine diplomatic mission to Russia Rolando Pocovi told Sputnik on Wednesday.

According to Pocovi, relations between Russia and Argentina are excellent and have the potential to continue growing to become even better.

"At the moment, we are expecting that the presidents of Argentina and Russia will sign a couple of agreements. In particular, we expect [them] to sign an agreement on cooperation in the fishing industry and probably one more document on the cooperation between the drug regulatory agencies of two countries. Both documents are expected to be signed during the Russian delegation's official trip to the G20 Summit. What we expect is a frank and fruitful dialogue. This will be the third time that President Putin and President Macri have met this year. That is why we really have many expectations," Pocovi said.

The diplomat added that Argentina had never supported the policy of international sanctions against Russia.

"As a general policy, Argentina has never supported sanctions because it considers the policy of unilateral and individual sanctions to be counterproductive and [something that] does not achieve its main goal. Dialogue and reasonableness have always been at the forefront. We should have never resorted to sanctions even in the Soviet times, so we have to keep working," he stressed.

On November 14, Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie told Sputnik that Macri wanted to discuss Russian investment into Argentine rail transport, which he said would unlock new potential for Argentina's atomic energy and mining industries. Argentina is also looking to Russia to import more agricultural goods and wants to discuss pressing global issues with Putin on the sidelines of the two-day summit, which starts on November 30, the top diplomat said.

Putin and Macri previously met this year in January and July, both times in Russia.