VARTAN OSKANIAN: WE NEEDS UNIFICATION BUT NOT SEPARATION IN THIS REGION

Noyan Tapan
Apr 20 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Foreign Minister participated
on April 19 in the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Black Sea
Economic Cooperation organization. According to the press release
submitted to Noyan Tapan by the RA Foreign Ministry, the Foreign
Ministers of Greece, Russia, Romania, Turkey, Azerbaijan, other
high-ranking delegations of the member states of the organization
participated in the sitting. Vuk Draskovic, the Foreign Minister of
Serbia, presiding at the BSEC opened the sitting.

The RA Foreign Minister, particularly, mentioned in his speech:
"if we today sign the Belgrade declaration, it is for the reason
that we accept, re-affirm and emphasize the one that the heads of our
states and governments signed in June, 1992: that there is economic
unequality among our members, that there are political hesitations
because of historic and other motives, and that, finally, none of
them is a reason to avoid cooperation. Just the opposite, those are
just the logic and motives which, though slowly and stage by stage,
must stimulate, encourage and assist promotion of the cooperation. And
we did it. From the bank to Center foundation, we created succeded,
functioning mechanisms for many-sided cooperation. The Minister also
mentioned: "None of us is here, at the BSEC, by an invitation. We are
here as we are here, among this neighborhood, in this region. And here,
in this region, we have transport systems, that need unification but
not separation, we have energetic systems which we must share with
each other but not isolate from each other, banking systems that
need increase but not reduction of resources, educational systems
that must be widened not isolated, societies that must be including
but not excluding ones."

The Belgrade declaration was adopted and the Memorandum on Mutual
Understanding for Coordinated Development of the Black Sea Ring Highway
was signed as a result of the meeting. After the meeting Minister
Oskanian participated in the solemn ceremony dedicated to the start
of the Caravan 2007 car march dedicated to adoption of the memorandum.

The chairmanship was passed from Serbia to Turkey for the coming
half a year. The BSEC summit will take place in Istanbul on June 25
of the current year on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the
BSEC organization.

Mentioning at the April 19 meeting between President of Serbia Boris
Tadic and Foreign Minister of Armenia Vartan Oskanian, that Armenia
attentively observes developments round Kosovo, Minister Oskanian
presented some details of his and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister’s
meeting on the previous day.