25.08.2000, MEDIAMAX, YEREVAN. There hasn’t been and can’t be any worsening in the Armenian-Russian relations, as these relations are mutually profitable and answer the vital interests of both the countries, stated today the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia, Ara Papian to “Azg” paper.
The spread rumors in the Armenian and foreign mass media about the worsening of the Armenian-Russian relations are not new, said Papian.
Continuing the theme of the Armenian-Russian cooperation, the paper stresses that neither the first president of Russia nor Vladimir Putin have visited Armenia either officially or for a working visit, while Armenia is Russia’s strategic ally in the South Caucasus. “True, Russian presidents haven’t visited Baku either, but as the Azeri press asserts, Vladimir Putin will start his official visit to Azerbaijan in the beginning of winter”, writes the paper. “Azg” also informs about the possible visit of Putin to Tbilisi this November.
Regarding this, the foreign ministry spokesman said that the information about the upcoming visit of V. Putin to Baku has been spread by Aliyev’s administration, “whereas they don’t have such data in Moscow”.
“The Armenian-Russian political and economic relations are incomparable to those of Russian-Azerbaijani and Russian-Georgian”, noted Papian. “Russia doesn’t consider Armenia and Azerbaijan on the same plane in the foreign policy aspect, and the Russian president’s visit to any of the countries is not an end in itself”, said Papian.
The Armenian diplomat thinks that the Armenian-Russian relations are formed in such a way that the questions having bilateral interest “are usually considered within the frameworks of CIS summits, connected with what the formal and purely protocol visits become meaningless”.
On September 25-27 Armenian President Robert Kocharian will pay an official visit to Moscow. -0-
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