Thursday, October 27 2005 19:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Moscow: Ahead of his summit meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russian President Vladimir Putin today (Oct 27, 2005) said that relations between Russia and India are 'unprecedently high' and both countries have a continuous political dialogue.

Receiving External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh at his country residence outside Moscow, Putin said Prime Minister Singh's forthcoming visit to Russia would be the biggest event of the year in bilateral relations.

Putin welcomed India's participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Prime Ministerial level meeting of which Natwar Singh attended yesterday.

India is one of the four observer nations at the SCO.

Putin said that the External Affairs Minister had talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Zhukov, which would strengthen Indo-Russian economic cooperation.

He expressed the hope that Natwar Singh's talks in Moscow would prepare the ground for the Russia-India summit later this year.

Conveying greetings from President A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Singh, Natwar Singh told Putin that he had very wide-ranging talks with Zhukov on development of economic ties and bilateral trade.

"We have unanimity on all issues which we discussed with Mr. Zhukov," Singh said.