Mr Mirzoyan,
Friends,
We are delighted to welcome you to Moscow at the height of events dedicated to the 30TH anniversary of our diplomatic relations.
This meeting offers a good opportunity to review all aspects of our cooperation and allied relations. We are interested in the further development of Russian-Armenian ties. You personally have been working to attain this noble goal for a long time. We appreciate the contribution you have made to our bilateral cooperation as President of the National Assembly of Armenia and also in your current position as the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia.
Our ministries are maintaining a substantive and systematic dialogue. We are trying to add elements of planning to their relations.
Today we will sign a plan of consultations for the next two years. Now that the pandemic outlook is improving, we should increase in-person interaction between our personnel. In the current geopolitical situation, we should compare views and assessments more often.
We are preparing for the next important event, the summit meeting of our leaders. Today we will discuss methods to make the upcoming meeting more substantial, which will impart a new quality to our allied relations.
As its main ally, we will continue helping Armenia to strengthen its combat capability and to protect the border. Being the main trade and economic partner and foreign investor in Armenia, Russia will continue looking for new projects to ensure the stability of our trade and to create new production facilities and new jobs.
We are working on a new package of proposals aimed at considerably increasing Russian investment in Armenia’s economy.
We maintain traditionally close educational, cultural and humanitarian ties in the interests of our people. We are also interested in strengthening our common educational, research and language space.
We will continue to support the Armenian language and culture in the Russian Federation.
Regarding the international agenda, we will discuss our cooperation outlook within the framework of the CSTO, the EAEU and the CIS. Armenia is currently presiding over the CSTO. It is important to adjust our actions to the plans which Armenia has presented to the CSTO member states. The issues of Nagorno-Karabakh and the South Caucasus have always held a prominent place in our discussions on regional matters. There are three blocks of agreements on the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh; they were reached at the highest level in November 2020 and in January and November 2021.
We will continue working to ensure the implementation of these agreements, including the operation of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Karabakh in strict compliance with its mandate.
There are many issues on our agenda. I hope that we will be able to discuss all of them in detail today and that we will reach agreements that will help us further boost our relations.