ARMENIA INTERESTED IN RUSSIA INFLUENCE IN REGION – MINISTER

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
May 10, 2007 Thursday 11:15 AM EST

Armenia is not interested in the decrease of Russia’s influence in the
region, Armenian Justice Minister David Arutyunyan said on Thursday.

"As Armenia is interested in stability in the region, the lessening of
influence or the withdrawal of Russia will have a negative influence"
and "will shift the balance, which will result in the escalation
of tension in the region," the minister noted at a conferece on
Russian-Armenian relations and Armenian foreign policy before and
after the elections.

"We consider issues of our own security and link them with Russia’s
presence in the region," he stressed at the conference, organized by
the Institute for CIS Studies (Moscow) with support of the Armenian
government.

According to Arutyunyan, the membership of Armenia and Russia in the
Collective Security Treaty Organization "is a qualitatively new level
of relations between our countries".

He believes interest in the South Caucasus has sharply grown at the
present time, and such players as the USA, NATO, the European Union
and Russia, have marked their presence there. "Although interests of
most sides in the region coincide as far as stability is concerned,
many of them have different means of achieving it," he stressed.

In particular, "each of these forces, in particular the USA, NATO and
Russia, believe their dominant presence in the region is a guarantee
of stability," he noted.

According to Arutyunyan, "synchronization of interests of different
countries in the region can be achieved through the development of
infrastructure, which would make it possible to involve all countries
of the region and make them interdependent".