Armenia, Arab League sign memo on mutual understanding

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
19 Jan 05

[Presenter] A new page of Armenian-Arab cooperation opened by signing
a memorandum on mutual understanding in Cairo today. Arab League
Secretary-General Amr Musa and Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan signed the memorandum on mutual understanding envisaging
cooperation between the two sides in the political, cultural,
scientific and other spheres.

[Vardan Oskanyan, on the telephone from Cairo] First of all, I want to
say that the memorandum signed today between the Republic of Armenia
and the Arab League countries is undoubtedly a historic event. I
consider that it opens the new page for the further development and
intensification of the Armenian-Arab relations. The signing of this
document is a positive result of the ancient historical and cultural
relations between the Armenian and Arab peoples as well as Armenia’s
foreign policy with regard to the Arab countries. This memorandum on
mutual understanding gives us an opportunity to carry out
consultations with the Arab League as an institution and to establish
cooperation with it in all spheres as well as with various Arab
countries via the Arab League.

Before and after the singing of the memorandum today we had the talks
with the secretary-general. We discussed various issues during the
talks. What is going on here, in the Arab region, today has an impact
on our region too. Today we also discussed the recent events in Iraq,
the election of new authorities in Palestine and other developments.

During the discussions, I informed about the situation in our Caucasus
region and also Armenia’s relations with its neighbours and the recent
developments around the Karabakh conflict.