ROUND-TABLE MEETING RUNS BETWEEN MONGOLIA AND UK

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia /MONTSAME/ The 10th round-table meeting between Mongolia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom took place on Wednesday in London. Since the year 1987, the round-table meeting takes place every two years to exchange opinions on the Mongolia-Britain relations and cooperation in the politics, culture, education, trade, economy, financial and investment sectors. This year's meeting was co-chaired by Mr D.Gankhuyag, the Vice Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs representing Mongolia; and by Mr Hugo Swire, the UK Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. At the meeting, which brought together representatives of the Foreign Ministries of the countries, delegates from the state organizations, NGOs, private sector and businessmen, the sides shared views on the external relations, security, regional and international relations issues, and shared information on the bilateral collaboration in various spheres and other planned works. In addition, the sides concluded works done in frames of the previous round-table meeting of 2008, and considered measures and events on occasion of the 50th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations to be celebrated in 2013. The gathered underlined an importance of reviewing a development of the bilateral relations and cooperation and of increasing scholarships for the Mongolian students to study in British universities and institutes. During the meeting, an intergovernmental memorandum on cooperation in the defense sector was signed by D.Gankhuyag, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, and by Mr D.Kernohan, a Director of the International Policy and Planning Department at the UK Ministry of Defense. This document reflects several works such as organizing mutual visits of defense officials, exchanging information, co-organizing consultative meetings and joint exercises, and others. B.Khuder