Statement by President Serzh Sargsyan on results of negotiations with Georgia's President Giorgi Margvelashvili at joint press conference

Distinguished Mr. President,
Honorable journalists,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank President Giorgi Margvelashvili for his invitation and warm welcome. I am very happy to be hosted in Georgia, a brotherly country.

Distinguished Mr. President, let me reaffirm our sincere desire and commitment to working with you in the spirit of friendship and mutual understanding. We attach great importance to our Georgian visit within the framework of which we conducted and will definitely conduct practical and effective negotiations and will have discussions on the comprehensive agenda of the Armenian-Georgian relations. We have got a wide range of issues and we will certainly be able to outline new prospects for our mutually beneficial cooperation.

The consistent reinforcement of the Armenian-Georgian partnership is one of the priorities of Armenia’s foreign policy. The fragile stability and peace in the South Caucasus region greatly depend on the effectiveness and firmness of the Armenian-Georgian cooperation. We have always respected each other’s decisions understanding that each of us is primarily concerned about strengthening his own state and we have been happy about it since Armenia and Georgia make each other stronger.

Active political dialogue is the best way to intensify economic cooperation. Armenia and Georgia have already set up clear directions in trade and economic cooperation, including transport and energy, agricultural food recycling and numerous other spheres. Both in the last and the current year we have recorded trade circulation growth and I am confident that we still have a huge amount of underutilized resources.

We emphasized the activities of the Armenian-Georgian inter-governmental commission and different groups and agreed that we should intensify those contacts and exchanges. This will give those groups an opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the previously made arrangements and of course, make new arrangements. We also touched upon Armenia’s involvement in the Eurasian region’s integration processes. We presented to our Georgian colleagues the works having already been carried out in that direction, the upcoming plans and in that context, the prospects of mutually beneficial economic cooperation with Georgia. I strongly believe that by signing the Association Agreement on June 27 and joining the Free Trade Agreement Georgia affords Armenian businessmen an opportunity to involve in the European market and make investments in Georgia. On the other hand, Armenia’s membership in the Customs Union opens up prospects for Georgian businessmen to invest in Armenia in case if they have interest in the Russian market or in markets of other Customs Union member states.

In the context of regional stability we put special emphasis on international cooperation platforms and maintaining a balanced and constructive approach towards the issues of reciprocal concern. This is also very important.

I and the Georgian President agree that a comprehensive resolution to every conflict is possible exclusively through peaceful means in compliance with the principles of international law.

Of course, we also touched upon our humanitarian cooperation since to put it figuratively, our cooperation in the humanitarian sphere is even more important than that of the economic sphere because we have lived in this region for a very long time and there have been numerous cases of cultural penetrations, that is to say both the Georgian and the Armenian cultures have been enriched. And surely, I am very grateful to the Georgian President for accepting our offer to organize a concert today in Tbilisi dedicated to the jubilee of the great artist Sayat-Nova whose works are the striking illustration of cultural penetrations.

I would like to express my gratitude for your warm welcome and again, I am glad to be in Georgia, a brotherly country.