‘WE WANT TO BECOME A MEMBER OF EUROPEAN FAMILY OF NATIONS,’ ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER SAYS TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Armenpress
Apr 09 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 9, ARMENPRESS: In an interview to The Financial Times
newspaper, published in today’s issue, Armenia’s new prime minister
Serzh Sarkisian spoke about the country’s economic development and
the process of democracy advancement, as well as about regional
developments and Armenia’s geopolitical concept.

In response to a question about the authorities’ commitment to hold
free and clean parliamentary elections on May 12, Sarkisian said
Armenia has assumed a long string of obligations and the failure to
observe them would make it ineligible for a number of economic and
political programs, promising effective incentives. He said Armenia
has to observe these commitments since they stems from its national
interests.

"We want to become a member of European family of nations,’ Serzh
Sarkisian said.

The Financial Times says one third of the landlocked Armenia, which
has a total of 3 million population, still lives below the poverty
level. In response to this question Sarkisian said, "It is hard to
speak about democracy and human rights, when one has to solve the
population’s social and economic needs." He added that Armenia does
not want to be a country stuck in the transitional period.

The newspaper writes that the new prime minister wants a bigger
involvement of the Armenian Diaspora in economic activity and the
government is looking for ways to encourage Diaspora investments.

In the interview Serzh Sarkisian also referred to the peaceful
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, improvement of
Turkish-Armenian relations and regional developments.

In a reference to the clash of superpowers’ interests in the region
he said," Some are trying to capitalize on their (superpowers’)
differences, some others are trying to cooperate with them. We choose
the second option."

Sarkisian also said he would like to see one day Armenia as a member
of the European Union. He also said that despite Armenia’s close
cooperation with NATO, a membership in it is not on the country’s
foreign policy agenda.