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From January 1, EU residents need no visas to travel to Armenia

They, for their part, confirmed that the European Union will continue offering aid to Armenia on the “more for more” principle

YEREVAN, December 15 (Itar-Tass) — From January 1, 2013, citizens of all European Union countries will not need visas to travel to Armenia, the country’s leadership said on Friday to the foreign ministers of Poland, Sweden and Bulgaria who discussed in Yerevan Armenia’s cooperation with the EU within the framework of the Eastern Partnership project.

Yerevan expects that the abolition of visas will help to further strengthen relations with the European Union. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said that he puts emphasis “on participation and assistance of the interested EU member countries in deepening cooperation of the republic with the European Union.” These relations develop intensively and have achieved a qualitatively new level, the interlocutors noted.

Armenia has reached much progress in talks on the association agreement with the EU and talks on setting up a zone of free trade also progress successfully, participants in the meeting said.

“Our aim is to continue and give a new pace to large-scale transformations in Armenia, which will strengthen and develop our state,” Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan told the foreign ministers of Poland, Sweden and Bulgaria - Radoslaw Sikorski, Carl Bildt and Nikolay Mladenov.

They, for their part, confirmed that the European Union will continue offering aid to Armenia on the “more for more” principle. They stressed the importance of ensuring transparency and a high level of the next presidential election scheduled for February 18.

“The Armenian authorities aim to hold a democratic election in line with international criteria,” the prime minister said.

“Armenia has centuries-long traditionally friendly relations with Poland, Sweden and Bulgaria,” Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan said. “At the present time our countries develop productive cooperation both in bilateral and multi-lateral formats,” he added.

At a meeting at the Armenian Foreign Ministry the parties considered a vast agenda of Armenian-EU relations. “Rather good progress is seen on a number of directions,” Nalbandyan stressed.

He confirmed that Armenia is aimed at “deepening and developing cooperation within the framework of EU’s Eastern Partnership. “Armenia will continue large-scale transformations in accordance with European criteria,” he stressed.

The interlocutors emphasized the importance of ending talks around the association agreement with the EU before the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in November next year.

They hailed the success of talks on the agreement to ease the visa regime that will be signed within the next few days.

The parties also discussed international and regional problems, in particular exchanging opinions on the situation in Syria and problems of Syrian Armenians.