MEMBER OF RUSSIA’S STATE DUMA: DESPITE CERTAIN GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL PROBLEMS, ARMENIA AND RUSSIA ENJOY VERY GOOD RELATIONS

ArmInfo
2010-03-25 18:36:00

ArmInfo. Despite certain geographical and political problems, Armenia
and Russia enjoy very good relations, Vice Chairman of the North and
Far East Committee of Russia’s State Duma Igor Chernyshenko said in
an interview to ArmInfo.

The Russian-Georgian conflict, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian Genocide,
Armenian-Turkish rapprochement – all of these problems need individual
approach by both Armenia and Russia.

"Armenians and Russians are doomed to be always together. This is
both our strength and our weakness. Sometimes we think that since we
are friends all of our problems will be solved automatically but this
is not the case in the politics," Chernyshenko said.

When asked to specify the existing Armenian-Russian
problems,Chernyshenko said: "The problem is that in some cases
Armenian-Russian relations are inter-linked with ties with
third states: for us it is Georgia, for you – Azerbaijan, for
us – Azerbaijan, for you – Turkey. This polygonal picture is not
always clear but we should not try to find out who is to blame, we
should find a happy medium. This is the best way in the politics,"
Chernyshenko said.

"When PACE discusses the Russian-Georgian conflict, I see that
our Armenians colleagues are faced with a dilemma: on the one hand,
they feel that they must vote for Russia but, on the other, they know
that Georgia may put them in a hard situation on Lars and some other
questions. We feel the same: we perfectly know that the problem of
Nagorno-Karabakh must be solved by the people living in that region,"
Chernyshenko said.