At the end of last week the RA foreign affairs minister, Vardan Oskanyan, participated in the 10th “Bertelsmann” forum in Germany, where the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the prime minister of France, Dominic D’ Vilpen, the EU president, Jose Manuel Bronso and the prime minister of Belgium, Gi Verhovstad, spoke opening speeches.
The mentioned forum is organized once in two years and its goal is to create mutual dialogue ties between the officials of the European economic, culture, political and information fields concerning the future of the continent. The previous forum was organized in participation of over 100 politicians (included the former foreign affairs minister of Germany, Hans Ditrich Gensher and U.S. ex state secretary Henry Kissinger) and was entitled as “European Strategic Answers”. By the way, Azerbaijan was represented there by their president. The president of Azerbaijan met with the chancellor of Germany, A. Merkel, in Berlin. One of the main issues that were discussed during the meeting was the issue of Karabakh conflict. Azeri papers covered that the Azeri president said during the meeting that he thought the role of Germany in the settlement process was important. According to day.az, the head of the Azeri president’s office foreign relations department, Navruz Mamedov, said that compared to other European countries, Germany “was more objective to the issue of Karabakh conflict”. By the way, recently there were rumors saying that the number of OSCE chair countries would be enlarged and among the possible new countries were said Turkey and Germany. However, during the discussions on the issue of Kosovo the Armenian foreign affairs minister said that “One can’t take the right of self-determination of people basing on political convenience only”. “If the world were led with a fright of precedent, half of the world countries would not exist”, said Vardan Oskanyan in Berlin and added that there should be specific standards, which main principle will be “whether the country has a moral reputation to exist”, however, the minister did not explain what the mentioned “moral reputation of existence” means. The Armenian foreign affairs minister also said that the effective implementation of the new European neighborhood program, the practical approaches of the conflicts, the Black Sea regional integrity and the relevant processes are the litmus paper that the region needs. According to the Mass Media and information department of the Armenian foreign affairs ministry, also the presidents of Bulgaria and Romania, the prime minister of Montenegro participated in the discussion on the topic of “Balkans-Black Sea – litmus paper for Europe”. The Armenian foreign affairs minister left for New York from Berlin to take part in the UN 61 General Assembly. Yesterday the minister was going to make a speech in the Assembly. Vardan Oskanyan is going to meet with the OSCE Minsk group co-chairmen in New York as well.