Armenia interested in deepening reform under EU patronage
By Ksenia Kaminskaya, Alexei Kartsev

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 16, 2005 Monday

WARSAW, May 16 — Armenia “is interested in the deepening of reform
under the patronage of the European Union,” Robert Kocharyan, the
Armenian president, said at the summit of the Council of Europe in
Warsaw on Monday. He said, “Reform in Armenia is prompted by inner
need, not by the wish to get praise.”

“We believe in Europe without closed frontiers, without violence,
without refugees,” he said. “In this connection we see the prospects
for the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

The Armenian president remarked that the changes in Europe are of
fundamental nature. He said, “West and East Europe ceased to be
political terms and became geographic notions thanks to the changes
that have taken place in contemporary Europe.”

“United Europe is now viewed as a new unique model of state,”
Kocharyan said. This “suggests a number of questions that must
be comprehended.” “Are there geographic boundaries to integration
processed in Europe and where do they pass, how relations will be built
with the rest of the world whose representatives have other history
and other traditions,” Kocharyan asked. “The answers depend on the
European leaders participating in the Warsaw summit,” he believes.

“The summit of the Council of Europe is held in the days of the 60th
anniversary of the Victory,” Kocharyan said. “Reintegration now takes
place where the rift occurred decades ago, and it is necessary to
build a new European architecture of unity and integration,” he said.