Armenia appreciates cooperation with Russia - Armenian foreign minister

YEREVAN, April 7 /TASS/. Armenia highly appreciates political, economic and military-technological cooperation with Russia, Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandyan told TASS on Tuesday ahead of the upcoming talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov due on April 8. "Apart from coordination of foreign policy issues and cooperation at international floors, there will be other items on the agenda of my meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. We are planning to discuss an entire spectrum of bilateral relations and the implementation of agreements reached by the leaders of our two countries as well as to exchange views on a number of urgent international and regional problems," Nalbandyan said adding that the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement would certainly be discussed. The Armenian foreign minister also said the programme of his visit to Russia included a meeting with Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federal Assembly /parliament/. "I am sure that all the talks and meetings will be fruitful as usual and will be aimed at further strengthening of allied partnership and strategic interaction between Armenia and Russia," the minister went on to say. He praised the level of Russian-Armenian relations. "The relations between our countries are based on a solid legal foundation consisting of about 250 agreements and treaties," Nalbandyan said. "Close cooperation in military-political and military-technological spheres is a vital factor of our security. Cooperation is on the rise in other spheres like transport, communications, the power sector, including nuclear energy, the mining industry, hi-tech, telecommunications, the banking sector and agriculture," the Armenian foreign minister said. Russia is the leading economic and trade partner for Armenia and also the chief investor in the Armenian economy. "The Republic of Armenia and Russia have signed a long-term economic cooperation programme until 2020. Russia is the only country with which we have signed this kind of document whose very existence indicates the exclusive nature of our economic relation," Nalbandyan said adding that he truly believed that Armenia’s membership of the Eurasian Economic Union /EEU/ would open up new opportunities for his country to expand and deepen its economic and trade ties. In a bid to help Armenia to develop its nuclear power sector, Russia will grant 30 million U.S. dollars to Armenia for extending the life of its nuclear power plants, the Russian government said in a resolution that appeared on the official portal of legal information on Tuesday. "Russia will appropriate a sum of 30 million U.S. dollars from the federal budget to render financial assistance to the Republic of Armenia in 2015-2019 in the form of advance payments in favour of Russian authorized organizations in compliance with point 3 Article 1 of the Agreement signed by the governments of Russia and Armenia on February 5, 2015 for granting a state export credit to the Armenian government to finance works aimed at extending the life of nuclear power plants located in the Armenian territory," the resolution said. The Russian government has instructed the Finance Ministry to allocate the funds in question from the Russian state budget under the section of "International Relations and International Cooperation." Read more