Armenian, Georgian foreign ministers discuss regional problems

Arminfo
21 Jul 04

YEREVAN

Armenian and Georgian Foreign Ministers Vardan Oskanyan and Salome
Zourabichvili have discussed bilateral relations and some issues of
regional significance in Yerevan.

Welcoming the guest, Oskanyan said that Zourabichvili’s visit and her
high-level meetings will lend a new slant to the issues on the agenda
of Armenian-Georgian relations, the Armenian Foreign Ministry press
service told Arminfo. The ministers discussed the main tasks of
bilateral relations and the region’s prospects. They voiced their
approaches to the issue of European integration and noted the
potential for mutually beneficial cooperation in terms of
strengthening relations with the European and North Atlantic
structures, such as the EU and NATO. They said that this will have
greater importance in connection with the South Caucasian countries’
admission to the Expanded Europe programme.

Oskanyan stressed the importance of developing roads and means of
transport both in the West-East and South-North directions. He said
that the proportional development of these directions will help turn
the South Caucasus into a busy crossroads. In this connection, the
parties exchanged their views on the possibility of restoring the
existing railway lines in the region, particularly the
Kars-Gyumri-Tbilisi railway and the Abkhaz section of the
Russia-Georgia-Armenia railway.

The parties also discussed issues of supplying energy to the region
and the processes going on in this sphere. In this connection, they
touched upon the implementation of several programmes with Iran.

The regional countries’ relations with Turkey were also discussed at
the meeting. Oskanyan spoke about the current state of
Armenian-Turkish relations and the possibility of making progress on
the issue. Then the parties discussed the region’s sore points – the
Nagornyy Karabakh, Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts,
and possible ways of settling these conflicts.