New authorities of Armenia demonstrated serious readiness to foster allied relations with Russia: Russian FM

In 2018 the Russian-Armenian ties were developing on the background of serious domestic-political changes in Armenia, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview to Armenian Mediamax.

“It is necessary to note that the new authorities of Armenia headed by the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan demonstrated serious readiness to foster allied relations, enhance multilateral partnership both on bilateral basis and in the framework of integration formats. The high dynamics of the political dialogue on the supreme and highest level, intensiveness of inter-departmental and inter-parliamentary contacts testify it. During the running year four meetings took place between Pashinyan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, as much meetings took place with Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev. Constructive Russian-Armenian dialogue contributed to the effective settlement of key issues on the bilateral agenda and allows formulating the steps for future,” Lavrov said.

According to the Russian FM, Russia remains Armenia’s leading economic partner – its share in Armenia’s foreign trade makes over 26%.

“Some 45% of all foreign investments come to the share of our country. A number of massive joint projects are being carried out. Over two thousand companies are working in Armenia with Russian capital, the inter-regional cooperation is progressing, exchanges in the culture, education, science sectors, contacts between peoples are boosting,” Lavrov said.

He also stated that in conditions of existence of such volume and variety of contacts certain issues may occur over which the parties may have different viewpoints.

“The important thing is that together with our Armenian friends we believe that such issues must be settled in constructive way and mutually acceptable solutions must be found. We have effective mechanisms for the settlement of issues. We are looking into the future of Russian-Armenian relations with optimism,” the Russian FM said.