Audio: Meeting with the former mayor of New York, Mr. R.Guiliani

Video: President of Latvia meets the former mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani

The President of Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga met the former mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani in Riga Castle today.

In her address to Mr Giuliani the President appreciated Rudolph Giuliani’s arrival to the academic conference on NATO transformation issues and stressed the significant contribution of the former mayor of New York to bringing the city in order and overcoming the crisis after the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11. She stressed that the mayor had then managed to unite people for overcoming the consequences of the tragedy and in that respect he still was a source of inspiration for many people in the USA and in the world. Rudolph Giuliani highly appreciated the development of Riga and the growth of the state democracy. He said that he had been in Riga for just a couple of hours, however, as a former mayor he could see how clean and beautiful Riga was and how fast it was developing.

During the meeting the President confirmed the wish of Latvia to see bigger US investments in Latvia in future as well as introduction of visa-waiver regime with the USA. The parties also dealt with the current developments of NATO and the involvement of NATO in the peace keeping process in Afghanistan.