Russia and the Philippines have signed almost a dozen deals, including a defense and military cooperation agreement, days after Rodrigo Duterte cut short his Moscow visit to urgently tackle the ongoing terrorist crisis in the country’s south.
Overall, Moscow and Manila signed 11 documents which had been prepared for the Philippines president’s visit to Russia.
“These include a defense cooperation agreement, memorandums on cooperation in nuclear energy, trade, investment, industry, transport, culture, and arts, as well as an action program for cooperation in tourism and a plan of consultations between our foreign ministries,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in talks with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alan Peter Cayetano.
The ministers also discussed “enhanced cooperation” in tackling global threats, such as international terrorism, illegal drug trafficking, cybercrime and sea piracy.
On Tuesday, following their meeting at the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Philippines counterpart instructed their delegations to sign a number of important documents after Duterte imposed martial law and cut short his Russia visit due to the terrorist onslaught in Marawi.
Duterte told Putin his country needs a reliable partner and supplier of modern weapons to fight terrorism. The issue became more pressing after Washington stopped the sale of 27,000 rifles last year, citing alleged human rights violations in the Philippines.
“Of course, our country needs modern weapons, we had orders in the United States, but now the situation there is not very smooth and in order to fight the Islamic State, with their units and factions, we need modern weapons,” said Duterte.
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