Dear Sergei Viktorovich,
Dear friends
Welcome to Yerevan!

Our meetings are held on a regular basis and are always meaningful and fruitful. Permanent intensive dialogue has been established between us.

The visit of Sergey Viktorovich to Yerevan, our meeting today create a good opportunity to discuss the process of implementation of agreements reached by the Presidents of both countries during the state visit of the President of the Russian Federation to Armenia and the following meetings of the Heads of states. Each meeting of the Presidents of our states provides new guidelines, directions on the short- and long-term perspective.

Together with Sergei Viktorovich we touched upon a wide range of issues of bilateral agenda. We recalled with satisfaction that the allied interaction between our countries has a positive dynamic in the political, economic, military-technical, humanitarian, inter-parliamentary areas.

During the negotiations a separate set of issues was devoted to the integration processes on Eurasian space, we thoroughly discussed the questions related to Armenia’s joining to the Eurasian Union.

We mentioned with satisfaction that the Intergovernmental Council on Economic Cooperation, Intergovernmental Council on Military-technical Cooperation, Inter-parliamentary Council are functioning successfully, and the relations between the regions are developing positively. Around 70 federal subjects of the Russian Federation have established partnership relations, cooperate with the Armenian regions.

Russia is Armenia’s key trade partner. In 2013 the turnover between Russia and Armenia increased by more than 10% and equaled to 1,445 billion USD. Russia is an important investor in Armenia’s economy, total investments exceed 3,2 billion USD, today around 1300 enterprises with Russian capital operate in Armenia. New prospects, new projects are drawn and the task-oriented works are undertaken by the sides to implement them.

Following the entry into force of the Russian Immigration law, the citizens of Armenia faced some difficulties, which was also an issue for our today’s discussions.
Indeed we discussed in details the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. We are grateful to Russia for its continuous efforts as a Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group towards exclusively peaceful settlement of the issue.

A month ago we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the establishment of cease-fire, and we remember quite well that the cease-fire between Karabakh and Azerbaijan, to which Armenia joined later, was established thanks to the efforts exerted by the Russian side, the indefatigable work of the Russian mediator.

We exchanged views on current regional and international issues, the Ukrainian crisis, the situation in Syria, Iraq, and in the entire Middle East; touched upon talks over Iran nuclear program.

We cooperate actively and successfully in various international organizations, such as the UN, OSCE, Council of Europe, BSEC. Naturally, the most intense cooperation and collaboration are in the frameworks of CSTO and CIS. A mechanism of regular consultations is established between the MFAs of the two states. Dozens of consultations are held in accordance with the approved plan.

This is, on the whole, the content of today’s negotiations.

I would like to once again welcome Sergei Viktorovich аnd the accompanying delegation, and to give the floor to him.

Questions and Answers

Question: Vladimir Kostarev, ITAR-TASS. Minister Nalbandian, taking into account the established good relations between Russia and Turkey, in your view, is Russia able to assist in improvement of the Armenian-Turkish relations?

Answer: Sergei Viktorovich was present at the signing ceremony of the Armenian-Turkish Protocols in October 2009, and that symbolized Russia’s support to the process of normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations.

The stance of Russia and that of other states, which supported this process, was expressed in numerous statements saying that the Protocols, signed in October, 2009 in Zurich, should be ratified and implemented without any preconditions. So Russia is able, and is doing whatever it can.

Question: Mariam Levina. News.am. With regard to the proposal of the French side to organize a meeting between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Paris, Mammadyarov declared that Baku is waiting for concreteness. What is that about?

Answer: During his visit to the region the President of France made a very concrete proposal, also in terms of substance with regard to organizing a Summit meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Paris. It seems this concreteness is not to the liking of Baku, as it is waiting for another concreteness.

For some reasons all the proposals made by the Co-Chairs on behalf of the international community, are not to the liking of Azerbaijan, including those on the consolidation of ceasefire, withdrawal of snipers, creation of a mechanism on investigation of incidents, the proposals are not to the liking of Azerbaijan which are presented as an integrated whole and are included in the five statements of the Presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries.

There is simply no alternative to the concreteness of what is proposed by the Co-Chair countries and which is directed at exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict.