Friday, 5 November 2004
Today RA Prime Minister A. Margaryan has received Mr. Jaap de Hupp Schefer, Secretary General of NATO.
By prioritizing NATO's role in the establishment of security and stability in South Caucasus, the Prime Minister emphasized that the development of the relationship with this major military-political alliance was quite high on the political agenda of our country. According to him, in the context of our country's complementary foreign policy, Armenia's cooperation with Russia and the membership to the Organization of Collective Security Agreement, as well as its collaboration with the NATO and the participation in the Partnership for Peace program were seen by the Armenian authorities as two components of the complex system of national security. By stating that over the past few years Armenia had been making consistent efforts towards this end, Mr. A. Margaryan pointed out to the recent appointment of Armenia's special envoy to NATO and went on to say that, for its part, Armenia was prepared to host NATO's Partnership Ambassador who was supposed to enhance the efficiency of Armenia's involvement in the Partnership for Peace program. The Prime Minister stressed that at this stage Armenia was engaged in all of the spheres which were seen as cooperation development priorities by the allies. In particular, since 2002 our country had been involved in the PARP process and, as from February 2004, an Armenian peace-making regiment had been carrying out KFOR activities in Kosovo under Greek command. Mr. A. Margaryan emphasized that, as a matter of fact, the level of NATO's cooperation with Armenia was almost as high as it was with other countries in the region. Moreover, Armenia had already expressed its intent of developing individual relationship with the Alliance under the IPAP program. He noted that a cross-agency commission had been set up involving all of the state agencies dealing with national security issues: ministries of foreign affairs, defence, finance and economy, nature protection, the National Security Service, the department for emergency situations and the National Academy of Sciences.
Mr. Jaap de Hupp Schefer stated that as a result of recent geopolitical developments and by virtue of the two-phased enlargement of the Alliance, the South Caucasian countries turned out to be at the focus of NATO
