Duterte invited by Putin to visit hometown: Yasay

PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte has been invited by his “idol,” Russian President Vladimir Putin, to visit Mr. Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg in Russia during the Filipino leader’s scheduled visit there in May, according to his top diplomat in a CNN Philippines interview on Monday, Jan. 16.

“We will not only be visiting Moscow, President Putin has also invited President Duterte to go to St. Petersburg, which is really the place where Putin comes from,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto R. Yasay, Jr. said in the interview.

“We are now in the process of engaging ourselves in the preparation of memorandum of agreements that hopefully will be signed when the President meets President Putin in Russia,” Mr. Yasay also said.

But Maxim A. Ananyin, the Russian Embassy’s press attaché, could not yet confirm the invitation to St. Petersburg.

“All I know is that there is an invitation to visit our country,” Mr. Ananyin said in a phone interview, adding:

“Every summer there is a St. Petersburg economic forum. Maybe Mr. Putin mentioned this event, so I should check it because I don’t know. If I know during the [ APEC leaders’] meeting in Lima, President Putin invited Mr. Duterte to visit Russia.”

But Mr. Ananyin also said “it’s an honor for Russia” to receive Mr. Duterte in Moscow.

In the same interview, Mr. Yasay also said Russia and the Philippines are considering partnerships in defense, maritime security, agriculture, and “technical cooperation” in mining — where, he added, Manila will make sure “that even as we engage the world insofar as the exploitation of our natural resources is concerned[,] it will be fair, it will be equitable and it will also be protective of our environment.”

Mr. Duterte had his first bilateral meeting with Mr. Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November last year.