While Armenia is in the middle of inner-political developments RA Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan keeps holding meetings with high-rank officials of political and economic circles of the US and France during his visits to the two countries.
During all of his meetings he speaks about such programs, which are going to be implemented after 2008. During his meetings he has also been discussing the presidential elections of Armenia to be held in 2008, in which Serzh Sargsyan will run as a candidate. The official visit of Armenian delegation headed by PM Sargsyan continues in France. On the second day of his visit he met Serge Chourouk, the ethnic Armenian president of the administrative board of Alcatel Company for a discussion of Alcatel’s activity in Armenia. The press office said both men agreed that Alcatel has to play a bigger role in various sectors of Armenian economy. Serge Chourouk was said to have pledged to be more specific in suggesting new projects for Armenia. On October 25 Sargsyan had a meeting with his French counterpart Francois Fillon. The Armenian prime minister was said to highly appreciate the friendly Armenian -French relations, describing them as “brilliant,” especially in political, cultural and local self-governance fields. He noted that the economic relations between the two countries are also improving, saying also that as a country with powerful economic capacities France can play an essential role in the development of Armenia’s economy. Armenia’s Prime-Minister, in his turn, stressed the dynamics of bilateral economic ties and the volume of French capital growing from year to year in Armenia. He pointed out successful activities of a number of major French companies, particularly “Alcatel”, “Veolia”, “Saur”, “Pernod Rickard”, “Credit Agricole”, “Air France”, in the Armenian market. Armenia’s Prime-Minister expressed hope that the Prime-Minister of France will assist in attracting new French companies to the Armenian market and pointed out the possibility of implementing joint projects in the fields of information technologies, insurance, banks and service, healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. The Prime-Minister of France promised to give instructions to start the work on mutually advantageous proposals provided by Armenia’s Premier. The two prime ministers also spoke about stability in the Caucasus, the process of the Karabakh conflict settlement in the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, the forthcoming presidential elections in Armenia in 2008 and a number of other issues of reciprocal interest. The French prime minister accepted Sargsyan’s invitation to visit Armenia. Sargsyan also met with the Secretary General of governing Union for a Popular Movement party of France Patrick Devejian. The sides discussed the expansion of cooperation and development of relations in various fields. On the last day of his visit he met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sargsyan and Nicolas Sarkozy discussed broad framework of issues of bilateral interest regarding political, economic and cultural relations. The Prime Minister reconfirmed Armenia’s invitation for the French President, which the latter accepted with gratitude and readiness. In the context of establishing closer relations in the cultural and educational sphere they particularly touched upon the issue of opening a French Culture House in Yerevan and an Armenian one in Paris. Sargsyan and Nicolas Sarkozy expressed bilateral desire to make Armenian-French cooperation in military sphere more active. They also spoke about the involvement of French companies in the programs of developing nuclear energy in Armenia. They bilaterally stressed the importance of bringing the economic relations between the two countries on the level of the political relations. Sargsyan and the French President touched upon the possible ways of easing visa regime between the two countries. During the meeting they also touched upon the regulation of NKR conflict and they bilaterally underscored that the conflict must be solved only by means of peace-talks. President Sarkozy also mentioned that because France is one of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, he would express his attitude regarding this issue to Azerbaijani President, who is planning to visit France in November. On October 26 Sargsyan met Charles Aznavour and in the evening he gave an interview to “Figaro” French daily, “Politic International” magazine and met the Armenian students studying in France. Today on October 27 Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan will return to Yerevan.