ARAM SARGSIAN: "ARMENIA LOST REAL CHANCES TO PARTICIPATE IN GREAT SILK WAY"

Today, Azerbaijan
Aug. 29, 2006

China’s and Kazakhstan’s participation in the construction of
Kars-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Baku railway is another failure of Armenia’s
Foreign Ministry.

Aram Sargsian, chairman of Democratic Party of Armenia, said this in
the interview to ArmInfo that Armenia had real chances to contribute
to construction of an alternative railway in Near East from Europe
and the Central Asia, convincing the interested sides in necessity
to restore the railway connection through Abkhazia. In response to
the issue of ArmInfo whether RA Foreign Ministry would manage to do
what RF Foreign Ministry failed to, Sargsian said that Russia has
quite complicated relations with Georgia and Armenia could act as an
active subject in this direction.

He emphasized that in 1998, in the course of the TRACECA conference in
Baku, Armen Darbinian’s, Head of Ministerial Cabinet of Armenia, report
on construction of railway communication from Europe to the port of
the Near East aroused interest of the European Ministers. "In order to
reach the Near East ports, the Europeans have to sail across 5-6 seas,
and it isn’t surprising that we had been receiving the messages of 10
European Ambassadors during a month after the report," he said. He
believes that Armenia missed the opportunity to participate in the
Great Silk way, after refusing to hold the summit of the European
Transport Ministers.

In response to the request of ArmInfo to comment on the fact that the
draft law directed to isolation of Armenia was declined by the US
House of Representatives and supported by the country in the chair
of Shanghai Organization for Cooperation (earlier DPA stated that
strengthening of SHOC is a favorable factor for the foreign policy
of Armenia), Sargsian said that it is quite natural, as China gets
dividends from direct railway communication with the Turkish ports,
while USA is too far and isolated with oceans. He added that Armenia
had to display interest to SHOC in time to get the support of China
for realization of its alternative "Great Silk Way."

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