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The leaders of Russia, Germany and France on Tuesday issued a joint statement which paves the way for a visa-free regime between Russia and the European Union.

The leaders of Russia, Germany and France on Tuesday issued a joint statement which paves the way for a visa-free regime between Russia and the European Union.

Dmitry Medvedev, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy expressed the hope that the Russia-EU summit in December would see progress in bilateral talks on scrapping visas.

"We will work with Russia in the atmosphere of trust... especially on the issue of visas," Sarkozy told a press conference after talks with Medvedev and Merkel. "We will move gradually."

"We understand that it should be a process... and we also understand that this process should have its 'road map'," Medvedev said.

Moscow has made visa-free travel between Russia and the EU a foreign policy priority. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rebuked the EU in late September for dragging its heels on the issue, saying that Russia wanted a "clear answer."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi backed the plan in July, but said several EU countries opposed it.

Russia submitted a draft agreement on scrapping the visa regime to the EU at the Russia-EU summit in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on May 31.

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