Tuesday, 14 October 2008
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan met with the leadership of the Armenian National Committee of America. The activities of the Committee, as well as the prospects for cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and Armenian lobbying groups were discussed during the meeting.
Then, the Prime Minister met with US Trade Secretary Carlos Gutierres. The interlocutors touched upon a broad range of issues covering in particular the signing of interstate trade agreements, the availability of favorable conditions for the development of high technologies in our country, as well as the provision of technical assistance to help expand small and medium-size business and build up a free economic zone in Armenia.
The RA Prime Minister's last meeting was with US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice. Prior to this meeting, the head of the Armenian government had met with US Vice-President Dick Cheney and World Bank/IMF top executives.
The parties concurred in that the Karabakh peace process should be pursued in a format consistent with the OSCE Minsk Group framework. The State Secretary underscored that all attempts to take the process outside the Minsk Group are not worthy of note. Tigran Sargsyan reiterated Armenia's readiness to continue the talks and added that dangerous are those statements highlighting only the principle of territorial integrity to the detriment of other key principles of international law.
With reference to Armenian-Turkish relations, Condoleezza Rice asked to be briefed on the developments following the Turkish President's visit. Tigran Sargsyan pointed out that our country has so far refrained from setting any pre-conditions whatsoever as to the establishment of diplomatic ties and expects Turkey to do so.
The State Secretary assured the Prime Minister of her readiness to possibly back the initiatives aimed at providing technical assistance to Armenia in different fields of interaction.
