SARGSYAN, MEDVEDEV DISCUSSED SITUATION IN ABKHAZIA AND SOUTH OSSETIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
02.09.2008 16:43 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met Tuesday
with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan in Sochi to discuss
the situation surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia and questions
relating to their bilateral economic cooperation, the Kremlin’s press
office reported.

Welcoming the guest, the Russian President said, "We meet
regularly. The last time we talked in detail was during your visit to
Moscow. The visit was informative and, in my opinion, our dialogue
continues to evolve. You know its results. There is nevertheless
even more potential for growth. I think that we will also talk about
economic problems.

But I will not hide the fact that I would like to exchange opinions on
international issues and foreign policy. In just a few days the summit
of the Collective Security Treaty Organization will start. Armenia
will assume the presidency. I think that we can reflect on how to
organize our work and share our thoughts in this regard. Especially
since we have not seen each other since Georgia committed an aggression
against South Ossetia."

For his part, President Sargsyan said that working meetings in Sochi
between the presidents of Russia and Armenia have become a very
good tradition. "They represent a very good opportunity to calmly
discuss both our bilateral relations as well as our relations in
multilateral formats. So I really am happy. All the more so since,
as you just mentioned, in these coming days Armenia will assume the
presidency of the CSTO. By the way, we have recently held Rubezh-2008,
the CSTO joint command and staff exercises, a meeting of the Council
of Ministers of the CSTO, and tomorrow in Yerevan a meeting of the
CSTO Security Council Secretaries will take place. I am therefore
glad that we are meeting today.

Of course I would also like to discuss economic issues, further
strengthening and deepening our relations within the CSTO and, of
course, the situation that has developed in our region of the Caucasus.

This is our first meeting after the events in South Ossetia, Abkhazia
and Georgia. We talked about this over the phone. I would like to once
again express my condolences over the loss of human life – Russian
citizens, peacekeepers – my regret that the events developed the
way they did, and wishes that the consequences of this humanitarian
catastrophe can be eliminated as quickly as possible. Incidentally,
in Armenia we have already been waiting for schoolchildren from South
Ossetia for two weeks now. We have prepared educational laboratories
in physics, chemistry and biology. We want to do everything we can
to help mitigate these consequences."