ARMENIA-EUROPEAN UNION RELATIONS SHOULD BECOME SYSTEMATIZED, GREEK PRESIDENT CONSIDERS

Noyan Tapan
Jun 27 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 27, NOYAN TAPAN. Greek President Karolos Papoulias,
who is in Armenia on a state visit, met with students, lecturers
and professors of Yerevan State University on June 27. Mentioning in
his speech that Armenia has expressed its European orientation and
Armenia-European Union relations are a reality, the Greek President
emphasized that these relations should become systematized: economic
cooperation, passing technical skills for the purpose of economic
cooperation and constructive reforms, live political dialogue up
to active participation in stabilization and conflicts settlement
efforts. All this, as K. Papoulias said, should be included in
the strategy of considerable deepening of EU’s relations with the
Caucasian region.

In the Greek President’s words, the European Union’s New Neighborhood
program contains right approaches, but more considerable political
and institutional interventions are needed for Europe to understand
the region’s importance.

"EU’s relations with the U.S. are well-known, Greece and Armenia
are for deepening EU-Russia relations, the two big powers can
have an important role in the issue of international stability,"
K. Papoulias said.

K. Papoulias mentioned geographic position, competition of
international forces and danger of reanimation of the borders of cold
war as important problems in Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas’
regions, especially as the regional countries are neighbors with the
Middle East, in particular, Iraq. In his words, the conflict over
the Iran nuclear program, the Cyprus issue, the indefiniteness of
Turkey’s European future and the situation of Middle East create a hard
political atmosphere. "The above mentioned issues, at the same time,
show our goals, to pass from conflicts to cooperation and development,"
the Greek President said.

The issue of energy, in particular, quick growth of demand for energy
was mentioned as one of the most important issues in the Mediterranean,
Black and Caspian Seas’ wide region. As the Greek President mentioned,
it requires new approaches in the issue of cheap and uninterrupted
supply of energy carriers.

The Greek President attached importance to cooperation between Yerevan
State Unviversity and Athens Kapodistriako University expressing
the hope that it can promote cooperation of the two countries in
cultural and educational spheres. He expressed satisfaction with
the quality of teaching Greek in Armenia, which, in his words,
shows Armenia’s interest in Greece, which is equal to the interest
of Greece in Armenia. "For various reasons the Greek people feels
that the Armenian people is close to it in the respect of culture
and history. Personally I and many of my compatriots are fans of old
Armenian culture," K. Papoulias said.

The Greek President was given the title of YSU Honorary Doctor and
was awarded YSU gold medal.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress