OFFICIAL WORKING VISIT BY THE ARMENIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDA
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Nov 11 2009
Switzerland
The head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Mrs Calmy-Rey
received Mr Eduard Nalbandian, Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs,
for a working visit on Tuesday evening. Two agreements were signed at
the meeting. One was an adaptation of the air traffic treaty of 1998,
while the other concerned the issuance of visas to diplomats.
Mrs Calmy-Rey and Mr Nalbandian are currently pursuing their talks
on various bilateral and multilateral issues. The discussions will
focus on the activities of the SDC in Armenia, the economic situation
in both countries, Switzerland’s objectives as chairman-in-office
of the Council of Europe and the activities of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe. The talks will be followed by a
dinner at which the exchange of views will continue.
In October 2008, the two countries re-negotiated the air traffic
agreement initialled in 1998, which had not yet been signed. The
old agreement has now been taken over by developments in the civil
aviation sector. It stated that air traffic between Switzerland and
Armenia would be governed by the principle of nationality. This
principle stipulated that the majority of the capital of airline
companies wishing to establish airlines operating between the two
countries would have to be owned by national investors.
The new agreement signed today stipulates only that the operational
headquarters have to be in one of the two countries. This new
formulation fully takes into account the conditions prevailing in
today’s globalised air transport market. The agreement suppressing
the necessity of visas for diplomatic staff comes on top of the
re-admission agreement which is already in force between the two
countries and underlines the good cooperation in migration matters
between the two countries.