AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 11 2005

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER CONCERNED OVER KARS-TBILBISI-BAKU RAILROAD
CONSTRUCTION
[June 11, 2005, 22:53:04]

AzerTAj’s Washington-based correspondent reports that visiting US
capital Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan has expressed
concern over the construction of the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railroad
(Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan), at the briefing on June 10. He described
as unreasonable a spending millions of dollars on the new project
whereas existing railroad Kars-Gumri (Turkey-Armenia) is `rusting’.

In the States, the Armenian Minister met with State Secretary
Condoleeza Rice, US President’s National Security Advisor Stephen
Hadley and co chairs of the US Congress’ working group for Armenian
issues.

According to Mr. Oskanyan, ongoing political and economic reforms in
Armenia, ways to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Turkey-Armenia
relations and current situation in the South Caucasus are what the
meeting were focus on. He claimed Armenia would not become one more
place of `revolution’.

Touching upon the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Armenian Foreign
Minister said the meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart expected
on June 17 in Paris would be built on the progress reached by the
Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Warsaw. He claimed the future
of the peace talks would depend on the forthcoming parliamentary
elections in Azerbaijan.

As for the moving the Russian military installations from Georgia to
Armenia, Vardan Oskanyan said, it met the interests of both sides
increasing Armenia’s security in the current situation.