President Vladimir Putin met with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko Sunday in Yalta for talks on bilateral cooperation between the two countries

President Vladimir Putin met with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko Sunday in Yalta for talks on bilateral cooperation between the two countries, as part of a summit in the Crimea involving leaders of the Single Economic Space agreeement. The summit, the first between member nations Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia, opened Sunday and marked a “symbolic event” in the first stage of the zone’s development, Interfax quoted a source close to the talks as saying. Earlier President Putin called the summit a “period” in the first stage of forming a free-trade zone. The agreement forming the alliance was signed last September between the four former Soviet republics to facilitate trade and, in part, as an answer to the European Union’s free trade zone. After his meeting with Lukashenko, Putin expressed satisfaction with the talks, noting that “despite a number of problems… Belarus is second in trade volume with Russia after Germany,” RIA Novosti quoted the president as saying. Putin also met Sunday with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev for talks on the unification of tarrif and customs policy.