Georgian president arrives in Armenia “with love”

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
12 Mar 04

[Presenter over video of meeting] Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili has arrived in Armenia on an official visit for the first
time. Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan, the chairman of the
standing parliamentary commission for foreign relations, Armen
Rustamyan, and other officials met Saakashvili at the airport. Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanyan said that our neighbour Georgia is one of the
regional countries with which we have no problems. The Georgian
president stressed the importance of relations with our country. He
noted that Armenia has a sufficiently kind and wise president who can
give serious advice during discussion of serious problems.

[Mikheil Saakashvili at airport, voice-over in Armenian] I do not
think of this as an official visit. I came to Armenia with love. Our
countries are historical neighbours. We cannot exist and develop
separately. Armenia and Georgia must act and cooperate jointly.

[Vardan Oskanyan] Following Mr Saakashvili’s recent visit to France,
where he made some proposals to start cooperation on integration
between the three countries in the Caucasus – I think that this is an
interesting proposal. But Azerbaijan has always hindered this. He also
visited Baku. We are very interested in Azerbaijan’s position
regarding this proposal.

The second interesting proposal made by Mr Saakashvili was to approach
settling conflicts through economic cooperation. He is preparing to
present such proposals to Abkhazia. We hope that it will be catching
for Azerbaijan too. We must settle conflicts by creating the most
favourable atmosphere through economic cooperation and cooperation in
other spheres. These two main issues are on the agenda. I hope that
there will be interesting talks between the two presidents.