Armenia doesn’t plan to join NATO
By Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
June 1, 2005 Wednesday 2:25 PM Eastern Time

YEREVAN, June 1 — Armenian Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan, who is
also the Secretary of the National Security Council, said on Wednesday
that the question of NATO membership was not in Armenia’s foreign
policy agenda.

“Nevertheless, we consider cooperation with NATO and the United States
to be an aspect of the country’s national security,” the minister
told Senator Norm Coleman at a meeting on Wednesday.

Sarkisyan described Armenia’s relations with the United States as good
and dynamic. “Military cooperation with the United States started three
years ago, the agreements, which we have signed, create favourable soil
for effective growth of reciprocal ties,” Sarkisyan went on to say.

The Armenian defence minister recalled that Yerevan was simultaneously
developing relations with European countries, including both NATO and
non-NATO members. Armenia cooperates with Russia and other members of
the Collective Security Treaty Organization in the military sphere,
Sarkisyan said. The most important thing is that these relations are
void of contradictions, the Armenian defence minister added.