ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
October 21, 2004 Thursday 2:23 AM Eastern Time
Armenia president to pay official visit to Georgia
By Tigran Liloyan
YEREVAN
Prospects of good-neighbourliness and cooperation between Armenia and
Georgia will be in the focus of attention of a three-day official
visit of Armenian President Robert Kocharayan to Tbilisi. An Armenian
delegation will leave for Georgia by cars on Thursday. A solemn
ceremony of its meeting will be held on the border.
Robert Kocharyan will hold talks with President Mikhail Saakashvili
and other leaders of Georgia. He will also visit head of the Georgian
Orthodox Church Catholicos-Patriarch of All-Georgia Ilia the Second.
An Armenian-Georgian business-forum will be held in Tbilisi on
October 24. Robert Kocharayan will meet leaders of the Armenian
community in Georgia numbering, according to unofficial data, up to
400,000 people. He will also take part in the city holiday
“Tbilisoba.”
“Maintaining and development of traditionally friendly relations with
Georgia stems from long-term strategic interests of Armenia and is
one of the priorities of the republic’s foreign policy,”
representatives of the presidential apparatus of Armenia told
Itar-Tass. Good-neighbourliness with Georgia is considered here to be
“the most important component of regional stability.”
“Armenia considers Georgia as a road ensuring the communication with
the external world and its uninterrupted operation is of extremely
great importance from the point of view of economic security,”
representatives of the presidential apparatus said.
“From the very beginning Armenian-Georgian relations embrace a wide
range of cooperation and have a rather dynamic characher with regular
contacts at the highest level,” representatives of the presidential
apparatus noted.