- Iran is ready to hold direct talks on its long-running nuclear problem, and will soon propose a timeframe to start them
- Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy programs if the international community's concerns are allayed
- Member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should intensify efforts in counter-terrorism efforts; Putin also urged the formation of an SCO anti-drug body
- The organization should create an energy club, and Russia could finance some economic projects
- Russia needs help from the international community to free Russian diplomats kidnapped in Iraq
- Russia opposes the creation of new regional organizations in Eurasia that would duplicate functions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
- The organization should tighten cooperation in the spheres of healthcare and education
* Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not back down over its nuclear program, and would continue with scientific research
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country and Russia could determine prices for natural gas together
* Ukraine's parliament voted for a recess until June 20 to continue consultations on forming a coalition
* Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko said he remained a supporter of a coalition in the country's parliament made up of the three main parties that swept him to power in the 2004 "orange revolution."
* Ukraine's pro-Russia Party of Regions said a deal to put an end to months of post-election wrangling and form a parliamentary coalition would be ready soon
* Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko urged the EU to abandon its confrontational stance toward the former Soviet republic
* Belarus will host a joint large-scale military exercise with Russia on June 17-25, to be attended by the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Belarusian Defense Ministry spokesman said
* Russia's Air Force Chief Commander Vladimir Mikhailov said Russia would launch its first fifth-generation aircraft in 2007
* Russia is in talks with Uruguay on setting up a joint venture to produce dual-purpose military products, Russia's arms exporter Rosoboronexport said.
* The Georgian Defense Ministry said another train with Russian military hardware from a Soviet-era military base in Georgia had left the former Soviet republic according to schedule
* Bulgaria's Energy Minister Rumen Ovcharov said the results of a tender to build a nuclear power plant in Belene would be announced in late July or early August, and that Russia had strong chances of winning it
* A court in Moscow upheld a decision made by the Justice Ministry to deny the banned registration to the extremist-minded National Bolshevik Party
* A Moscow court sentenced two students who attacked Chechen singer Liza Umarova and her son last fall to nine months and one year in prison
* Russia's Supreme Court overturned a jury's acquittal of Magomed Salikhov, suspected of involvement in an apartment-block bombing in the Daghestani town of Buinaksk in 1999
* Three gunmen including an alleged notorious militant were killed during an operation in the Ingushetia region in Russia's North Caucasus
* A Soyuz-U rocket carrier with a Resurs-DK Russian satellite for remote sensing of the Earth was launched from a base in Kazakhstan, mission control said
