Today the President of Russia and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom visited COBR, the Government’s crisis management centre. They discussed bilateral and international cooperation in counter terrorism, and heard presentations from the Metropolitan Police, the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service.

"Our countries have both suffered at first hand the cruelty and inhumanity of terrorism. In July, London was struck by a series of terrorist bombs that claimed 52 victims. And in September last year over 330 people - most of them children - were killed in the terrorist atrocity at Beslan. Today, we reaffirm our utter condemnation of terrorism in all its forms, and our determination to strengthen existing co-operation to fight this common scourge.

When we met in December 2001, we launched the UK-Russia Joint Working Group on International Terrorism in order to deepen our collaboration in practical ways. Today, we received a report on recent co-operation in bilateral and multilateral fora, including our close work on the text of the resolution on inciting terrorist acts, which was recently unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council.

At today’s meeting, which marks the first visit of a foreign leader to COBR, we resolved to continue to strengthen our partnership, in particular by increasing practical cooperation between our security agencies".