Presidents of Russia and Armenia Discuss Economics, Regional Issues During Moscow Meeting

MOSCOW – Russian president Vladimir Putin met with Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian in Moscow today.

During their meeting the two leaders reportedly discussed key issues of Russian-Armenian cooperation, prospects of integration processes in the Eurasian space and the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. Issues related to the cooperation of two countries in trade and economic, investment, energy, humanitarian and other spheres were also discussed.

Both presidents expressed satisfaction with the “successful development” of Armenian-Russian relations, with Putin defining them as “strategic partnership”.

Putin and Sarkisian dwelled on the fact that Armenia currently holds the rotating presidency in the CSTO. “It is this organization that is responsible for security issues, for fighting terrorism and organized crime and for calm on our borders,” Putin emphasized in remarks reported by the Kremlin press service as well as Sarkisian’s official website.

Sarkisian, for his part, said that Armenia, as the currently presiding country, “pays great attention to the implementation of the decisions made at the September and December summits of the CSTO.”

“We are, of course, concerned over the situation in the regions adjacent to the zone of CSTO responsibility. Like I said during the December session [of the CSTO] and in my other speeches, I once again openly declare that we firmly support Russia in the Syrian issue. And, of course, we welcome the agreement that you have reached with the United States on the cessation of hostilities [in Syria], which may become a key to the political solution to the problem,” the Armenian president stated.

Sarkisian also thanked Putin for Russian efforts on finding a solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. “We remain committed to a peaceful resolution of this conflict,” he emphasized.

During today’s meeting with Putin, Sarkisian spoke about “full mutual understanding in the political, economic, military-technical and humanitarian spheres.” “These relations are developing very well,” he said.

Putin, on his part, said: “Of course, there are also problems of objective nature, I mean first of all our economic cooperation, even though here we understand that on the whole we can be satisfied with how we have built the basis of our relations. I have no doubts that basing on our joint decisions of previous years we will be developing [our relations] also in this direction.”

The price of natural gas that Armenia receives from Russia is one of the issues on the economic agenda of the two countries. In January, Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian said Armenia had asked Russia to cut the price of natural gas delivered to the country and hoped for a positive response.

Gazprom, which supplies at least 80 percent of Armenia’s gas, already lowered the price from $190 to $165 per thousand cubic meters for Yerevan in 2015.