“Year by year the relations between Armenia and Russia are becoming more dynamic and progressive,” said president Serzh Sargsyan during a meeting with famous Russian politicians and journalists organized at the Embassy within the framework of his official visit to Moscow.
According to him, in the field of economy we have succeeded in rapid growth of investments and trade circulation. Now there are over 1000 companies with Russian capital in Armenia. Serzh Sargsyan also presented the successful developments resulted from economic reforms. The president presented the main directions of the foreign policy and said that the country is developing comprehensive and dynamic policy targeted at developing relations with the neighborhood countries and integrating with Europe, specifically with the EU in the framework of the European neighborhood policy. “The most important thing in our foreign policy is that we are against the possible speculations of conflicts with our colleagues and are doing our best to help the situation but not to bring more tension in the environment in South Caucasus,” said the RA president. Serzh Sargsyan called the foreign policy of Armenia as an integration policy. According to him, Armenia is concerned of the fact that the borders are closed and communication interrupted in South Caucasus. Due to the fact that the conflict of Karabakh has not been settled Azerbaijan is refusing to include us in any regional projects. “We are estimating such approach as non-constructive and short-term. We think that regional cooperation is the shortest way to settle the outstanding conflicts,” said Serzh Sargsyan.
Concerning the relations with Turkey the president says that despite the fact that Turkey wants to integrate with Europe, it keeps the border closed with Armenia sometimes with the substantiation that the demands of Armenia to recognize the genocide are not satisfactory for them, and sometimes by saying that with this action it wants to support Azerbaijan. Serzh Sargsyan also says that Turkey has suggested to convene a commission of experts in charge of investigating the historical facts concerning the Genocide. “We are not against proposals to investigate things, even if those things are historical truth and facts known by everyone. However, it would be logical to convene such commission after developing diplomatic relations between the two countries and opening the borders. Otherwise it will become a tool for that dialog and conflicts of interests,” he said. “We see that Turkey’s wish to integrate with Europe is stimulus for reforming the society. As a neighboring country, we will be happy to see Turkey complying with the European standards: it means more predictability and transparent relations,” said Serzh Sargsyan. He also informed about his wish to invite the Turkish president to Armenia to watch the football play between the Turkish and Armenian national teams in September of this year. The president also spoke about the fact that some connection lines through Georgia are stopped, specifically the railway, which stops in the Abkhazian part of Georgia. Also, due to long-term reconstruction works of the Upper Lars road through the border of Georgia and Russia, Armenia is having problems too and the main connection direction with Russia is through the sea ferry. Concerning the conflict of Karabakh Serzh Sargsyan said, “I believe that the conflict is possible to resolve based on mutual agreement and compromises. However, as we know, compromise is art of possibilities. In the case of Karabakh the solution should be built on the fact that Karabakh has never been a part of Azerbaijan. Karabakh was given to the Soviet Azerbaijan by the decision of the party but not by the state body. In fact it is an illegal act, which has a strange explanation: for dispersing socialism ideologies in the Islamic East… Whatever the solution of the conflict is, it cannot be based on reducing the role of independent status of the free statehood of Karabakh in any manner,” said the president of Armenia.