The Government of the Republic of Armenia

Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received OSCE-accredited ambassadors, who are paying a regional visit to Yerevan. The participants of the meeting talked about Armenia’s economic policy, the implemented reforms, cooperation with the European Union and other regional issues.
Welcoming the ambassadors at the Government, Prime Minister said, “The reforms implemented in Armenia are aimed at a number of issues, including the improvement of the business environment. We can see that the reforms of the recent years have been giving their positive results. World Bank’s Doing Business reports and the Global Competitiveness Reports indicate that Armenia has been improving its business environment step by step. Despite all that, we still have serious work to do in this direction.”
The Prime Minister said that the EU’s support is very important for Armenia during the implementation of the reforms. “Today we are effectively negotiating with the EU about the Association Agreement and we have received our European partners’ positive feedback on the reforms. Armenia launched negotiations on a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union. We intend to complete the negotiation process in November-December 2013. We want to be fully prepared to sign this agreement, because it has a significant meaning for us,” said Tigran Sargsyan.
The Prime Minister expressed confidence that Armenia’s strategy and the reforms will allow us to significantly improve the quality of life in the country. “Our number one political and economic issue is the formations of the middle class. Unfortunately, the tension is still high in our society and we haven’t managed to solve the problem of poverty yet. That being said, the eradication of poverty is essential for us. We implement the same strategy on assistance to small and medium enterprises, cooperating with various international institutions. For this purpose, we have created a National Council, headed by the Prime Minister, where we discuss and try to find solutions to the existing problems,” said Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
Speaking of the problems of ensuring the availability of free competition in Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan informed, that the state is cooperating with the European Union to be able to perform radical steps in this direction. “Our objective is to separate business from politics, to make the activities of the public figures transparent and make the declarations of their incomes available to the society. Such radical changes have already been made by adopting various legal rules, and I think that this can be considered the beginning our new reforms,” said the Prime Minister.
Tigran Sargsyan reminded that Armenia has already presented a new reform agenda in 31 directions to the European Union, which relates to the judiciary authorities, human rights areas, the establishment of democratic institutions, the creation of equal conditions of competition, the improvement of tax and customs administrations, etc.
Referring to the Turkish ambassador’s observation, according to which Armenia and Turkey should move forward looking into the future, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said, “We offer you to immediately establish diplomatic relations and open the borders. I hope that you will be able to extend your approach in Turkey and that the Turkish people share your views on being able to move forward, looking into the future and establish diplomatic relations with Armenia. You just need to demonstrate political will. Armenia has already demonstrated that will and we can now confirm to you that we are ready to establish diplomatic relations with our neighbors. The absence of diplomatic relations in 21st century moves us back for a few centuries. Turkey should also demonstrate political will and establish relations with Armenia without any preconditions. We have already made our move, now it’s your turn. It is very important for us that the European Union, Russia and the United States share our view on this matter.
You should be able to convince your people, that the interstate relations can not be conditioned on the conflict settlement between your friendly Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabagh. If we are faithful to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict, then your society should be prepared to accept this point of view, too,” said Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
The meeting also addressed the cooperation within the CIS, launch of “Regulatory Guillotine” in Armenia and other issues.