ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 16, 2004 Tuesday

Armenia hopes for peaceful settlement of Adzharia situation

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan said he was hoping that Tbilisi
and Batumi would settle their disagreements through talks. Yerevan
hopes that the situation will normalize and that it will not affect
the functioning of Black Sea ports, he said.

“Georgia on the whole and the Black Sea ports of this country have a
very important significance for Armenia,” Kocharyan said in the
course of his visit to a Defense Ministry’s military college on
Tuesday.

The president noted that Armenia’s authorities wish for a peaceful
settlement of the situation around Adzharia was voiced during the
recent official visit to Yerevan by Georgian leader Mikhail
Saakashvili.

“Stability in Georgia has an extremely important significance for
Armenia,” said Serzh Sarkisyan, Armenia’s Defense Minister and
Secretary of the National Security Council under the president.

The minister said he did not share the view that a new war would
break out in the region.