D. AVRAMOPOULOS: It was a truly great pleasure to welcome the Armenian Foreign Minister, Edward Nalbandian, to Athens today.
This is a visit that reaffirms the excellent relations the two countries maintain with one another and paves the way to the strengthening of our cooperation on the bilateral and regional levels.
As you know, Greek-Armenian relations go back through centuries of a shared historical course and continue today based on firm foundations of sincere friendship, mutual respect and appreciation, and deep understanding between the two peoples.
So it is only natural that we take particular pride in the existence of a strong Armenian community in the city of Athens; a community that is a model of integration into Greek society and is distinguished for the success of its members in various walks of life.
My friend Foreign Minister Nalbandian and I had sincere and in-depth talks on many issues of bilateral and international interest. We also discussed regional issues that are important to both of our countries.
I briefed Mr. Nalbandian on developments in the Cyprus issue, on the European course of the Western Balkan countries, and on developments in our wider neighbourhood.
The existing level of cooperation between our countries is very good. But of course there is always room for improvement, and this was the aim of Mr. Nalbandian’s visit to Athens today.
In this spirit – of upgrading and enhancing the two countries’ relations – we decided to prepare an Intergovernmental Council that will take place somewhere around October and will provide yet another opportunity for us to update and renew our already existing agreements and to sign new ones.
Our country, Greece, as a factor for stability in the wider region of Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean, has an ongoing interest in enhancing the stability and development of the countries of the region.
We agreed that Greek-Armenian economic cooperation should reflect the excellent level of our political cooperation, and we agreed to look immediately at ways of strengthening and expanding this cooperation.
With regard to EU-Armenian relations, we expressed our satisfaction at the progress that Armenia has made in the negotiations on the Association Agreement with the EU and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.
Greece supports the tightening of EU-Armenian relations. With this prospect in mind, we hope to see these agreements initialled at the 3rd Eastern Partnership Summit Meeting, in Vilnius, this coming November.
In order to support the further development of Armenia’s relations with the European Union, and in view of the upcoming Greek EU Presidency in the first half of 2014, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding today that lays the foundations for the initiation of cooperation between the two Foreign Ministries on EU-related issues.
This memorandum opens a new chapter in our relations, with the EU as the center of gravity, and provides for the designing of training and cooperation programmes for civil society and academic agencies.
Once again, I would like to welcome the Foreign Minister of Armenia, my friend Mr. Nalbandian, to Athens, and wish him a pleasant stay and success in his mission. To the benefit, always, of the Armenian people, of peace, of stability, of cooperation and of development in the wider region. In closing, I would like to thank him for his invitation to visit Yerevan, which I accept and will take place soon. Again, I thank him and welcome him.
E. NALBANDIAN: Dear colleague, dear friends, I would like just to add a few words to what was said. First of all, thank you very much for the invitation and for the very warm hospitality, which reflects the very strong, privileged relations between our two countries.
Before our meeting with the Foreign Minister of Greece, I had the honor of a meeting with the President of Greece and with the Speaker of Parliament, with the Friendship Parliamentary Group. And today, I will have also the opportunity to meet with the representatives of the Armenian community. We used this opportunity to talk with Dimitris Avramopoulos about different issues, a very wide range of issues on our bilateral agenda, regional and international issues.
We touched on formats of cooperation, like our cooperation in the framework of different international organizations. Particularly we talked about the cooperation in the framework of the Council of Europe, which Armenia will be chairing this year, but as well as in the framework of other international organizations.
We discussed Armenia-EU cooperation and especially in the context of the upcoming 2014 Greek Presidency of the European Union. We touched on different regional issues. I briefed my colleague on the latest developments in the peace process, the negotiating process on Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. And I briefed him about our efforts together with the co-chairing countries towards exclusively peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
We also discussed possibilities of new meetings and in different formats and different invitations extended to high-ranking Greek officials to come to Armenia. And I would like to say, dear friend, Dimitris, that I will be very glad to welcome you in Armenia. Thank you very much.
JOURNALIST: The question is addressed to the Greek Foreign Minister. Minister, I know that we have excellent bilateral relations with Armenia, but there is also excellent cooperation between the two countries in international organizations. At the same time, we have good cooperation, particularly in the energy sector with Azerbaijan. Could you please comment a little bit more on your relations with the two countries? Thank you.
D. AVRAMOPOULOS: So, let me say that it would be wrong to think of this development we have had with Azerbaijan in the energy sector, as something that would have a negative impact on our relations with Armenia, because, as I mentioned in the beginning, we have very strong, very stable and historical ties with Armenia.
There used to be views, and here I am referring to the famous zero-sum game, where somebody’s gain was somebody else’s loss. Let me say that this belongs to the past. This is no longer the case. The fact that we have relations with the people of Azerbaijan, with the nation of Azerbaijan, and the fact that we have developments in many different sectors, not just the energy sector, would never undermine or jeopardize our excellent relations with Armenia.
It is well-known to all that Greek foreign policy is a peace-loving policy – a policy that serves the principles of stability, of cooperation and of peace, and any cooperation we develop serves these principles. Let me also point out that the constructive and very positive role played by Greece in the region has been recognized by the international community.
The main aim of our initiatives is to strengthen friendship, peace and cooperation, but also to strengthen good neighborly relations in the region. And this is to our mutual benefit. It is to the benefit of the Armenian people, to the benefit of the Greek people, but it is also to the benefit of everyone because there will be cooperation, stability, peace and development in the wider region.
March 15, 2013