YEREVAN, October 23 (Itar-Tass) —— Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan starts on Sunday a three-day state visit to the Russian Federation at the invitation of his counterpart Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev.
The programme of the visit includes top-level negotiations in the Kremlin on Monday, as well as meetings with the country’s leaders. Besides, Sargsyan will meat with teachers and students of the Moscow State Lomonosov University and will lay wreaths to the Unknown Soldier Monument by the Kremlin wall.
Political cooperation between the two countries is considered as strategic partnership and the political dialogue is at the high level. During Medvedev’s state visit to Armenia last August, the presidents confirmed following the strategic partnership and further development of bilateral relations.
“Russia is Armenia’s leading trade and economic partner,” Armenia’s Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisyan said. “Russia makes over half of all investments in Armenia’s economy over its independence.”
He said that presently there are about 1,400 enterprises in Armenia, where Russian capital participates.
“They are investments of billions in our economy, from the energy sector to small and medium businesses and the financial sector,” Sarkisyan said.
Russian enterprises feel comfortable in Armenia, he said on October 18 in St. Petersburg during his meeting with Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Their “economic potential is growing,” these “enterprises have reached a rather high level of revenues,” he said.
Russia’s loan to Armenia of 500 million dollars let the country soften the consequences of the world financial crisis, solve certain urgent social and economic objectives, like reconstruction in the northern part of the republic which had suffered from an earthquake back in 1988.
Armenia appreciates greatly Russia’s mediator role as co-chair of the Minsk Group of the OSCE on Nagorny Karabakh and personal involvement of Russia’s president in efforts to bring closer positions of the sides.
Russia and Armenia cooperate closely in the military-technical sphere. In compliance with the inter-state agreements, Armenia hosts a Russian military base and border guards /at the border with Turkey and Iran/. Armenia takes presence of Russia’s military and border guards as a major component of the national security. In 2010, the term of the Russian base’s presence was extended by 49 years.
“Our peoples have historic, spiritual, social, economic and political ties,” Sargsyan told the Allies. CSTO magazine earlier. “Cooperation between our countries has reached the level of strategic partnership, and cooperation in the framework of the CSTO has strengthened additionally the dynamically developing Armenia-Russia relations.”