Ladies and Gentlemen of the press,Mr and Mrs Gorbachev.
We have had excellent talks between Mr Gorbachev and myself and between the Foreign Secretary and Mr Shevardnadze. We warmly welcome Mr Gorbachev to our country and are delighted he has found time in a very long day to make this short visit.
We are living in historic times and the treaty which Mr Gorbachev is going to sign is a historic treaty. It comes towards Christmas and towards the new year. It will be a source of extra security and extra joy for the peoples, not only of our two countries and of Europe and the United States, but also for the world as a whole and is the promise of more progress to come.
We wish Mr Gorbachev and Mrs Gorbachev a very successful and very happy visit to the United States.
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Mr Gorbachev
First of all for your initiatives that we meet on my way to Washington. We have responded to this initiative with great willingness. We regard this meeting and the short discussion which we had as convincing evidence to the fact that our relations require new dynamic and more business-like and constructive cooperation start and go on between our two countries.
We are prepared to go on acting in this spirit to broaden and deepen our mutual understanding and our cooperation—our interaction.
You recalled that the road to the agreement which we have come very close to signing, the agreement on the elimination of two kinds of nuclear weapons but we have covered this road together; I mean altogether the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, our allies and your partners.
And I think that by acting in this way the Governments of West and East, of these countries have expressed the will of their people and not only of their people but of all the countries in the world, of the people who want to have peace, who are striving for disarmament for a better world, for a non-nuclear world.
We expect our visit to Washington, our conversations with administration of the United States, with other interlocuters, with the American public would help us move forward on the road of the restructuring of the international relations to a better and deeper cooperation and mutual understanding. That is what we aim for.
Thank you Mrs Thatcher for your hospitality and I take this occasion to convey on behalf of the Soviet people the best wishes of peace and prosperity to the people of Great Britain.