Serzh Sargsyan meets with Angela Merkel in Germany

President Serzh Sargsyan being on official visit to Germany today met with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

They focused on development of mutual relations as well as realization of possibilities of multilateral collaboration formats.

The President said that mutual high-level meetings advance political dialogue and give a possibility to deepen collaboration with Germany in all spheres. Serzh Sargsyan mentioned that Armenia also considers Armenia-Germany partnership as an important component in the European integration process.

The sides also spoke about development of trade and economic ties mentioning that existence of nearly 80 companies with German capital in Armenia is a good basis to expand collaboration in the investment sphere.

Financial and technical assistance provided to Armenia by German government was also touched upon. The Armenian President said that Germany ranks second by the assistance program volumes among donor countries collaborating with Armenia mentioning that those programs are of much significance in the respect of reforms carried out in various sectors of our economy and public life.

President Sargsyan and Chancellor Merkel also discussed the South Caucasus problems. Serzh Sargsyan hailed Germany’s balanced policy in the region. Speaking about the Nagorno Karabakh problem President Sargsyan rated it alarming that Azerbaijan is not ashamed of voicing constantly its unconcealed ambitions to resolve the conflict in a military way, thus endangering not only Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations but also regional security in general. Touching upon Armenia-Turkey relations the President regretted to say that Armenia’s and international community’s efforts aimed at normalizing the relations and opening the last closed border in Europe gave no result because of Turkey’s using the process for other purposes and rejecting the coordinated principles of negotiations.

The sides rated important the necessity of moving forward without preconditions in Armenia-Turkey rapprochement as well as achieving peaceful settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict through negotiations within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

President Serzh Sargsyan and Chancellor Angela Merkel held a short press conference at the end of the meeting, President’s press office reported.