Vartan Oskanian: Armenia Isn’t Going to Leave CIS

AZG Armenian Daily #064, 08/04/2006

Foreign policy

VARTAN OSKANIAN: ARMENIA ISN’T GOING TO LEAVE CIS

According to the schedule of his visit to Russia,
today, Vartan Oskanian, RA Foreign Minister, will meet
with his Russian colleague Sergey Ivanov. Mr. Oskanian
has already met with Igor Ivanov, Secretary of RF
Security Coiuncil, and Yuri Merzliakov, the Russian
Co-chair of the OSCE Minsk group.

Oskanian stated in Moscow that Armenia continues
participating in the arrangements within the framework
of CIS. He said this in response to the forecasts of
some experts that state that Armenia is going to limit
cooperation with the CIS member states.

In his turn, Mr. Merzliakov said after the meeting
with Mr. Oskanian in the interview to “Liberty” Radio
Station, that he had quite an interesting and fruitful
conversation with Mr. Oskanian about the settlement of
Nagorno Karabakh issue. “I representted the plans of
the Co-Chairs to Mr. Oskanian, while he represented
the official position of Armenia on the issue. The
details will be known after the meeting of Mr.
Oskanian with Mr. Lavrov,” Mr. Merzliakov said. . He
added that the OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs are likely
to visit Yerevan and Baku in mid May.

By Aghavni Haroutiunian