JOINING NATO NOT ON ARMENIA AGENDA – FOREIGN MINISTER
ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
March 12, 2007 Monday
Armenia does not have on its foreign policy agenda the accession to
NATO, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan said.
"The main regulating document – the plan of individual partnership
with NATO is so voluminous and substantive that the implementation of
it will take a lot of time," Oskanyan said at a ceremony of opening
NATO’s information centre in Yerevan that he attended together with
NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Jean Fourne.
The setting up of the Western alliance’s information centre in Yerevan
is one of provisions of the partnership plan.
"Perception of NATO by a part of the public does not correspond to the
new, altered realities – the present-day NATO has succeeded to adapt,
go away from the Cold War times," Oskanyan said.
He said that the opening of the information centre was needed by
Armenia, as Yerevan pursues a multi-vector foreign policy.
"We have large-scale relations with Russia in the security sphere,
we are in the CSTO (the Collective Security Treaty Organisation)
and simultaneously developing the cooperation with NATO within the
framework of the individual partnership plan. The many-year cooperation
has shown that there is no contradiction in that. By means of this
cooperation we shall be able to make a contribution to consolidation
of security in the region," Oskanyan said.