Premier: Armenia has received no official invitation to join Eurasian Economic Community

YEREVAN, September 12. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, speaking Wednesday in the National Assembly, said Armenian government has not received an official invitation to join Eurasian Economic Community.

“The reason is simple – it is now being discussed what the community’s configuration will be and what instruments and documents will be created,” he said adding that Armenia participates in these discussions. 

Sargsyan stressed that Armenia is too small country to afford diplomatic games – that is why its foreign policy is very transparent and acceptable to its all partners. 

“Armenia is interested in integration in both Eurasian Economic Community and European Union, but the country finds it wrong to oppose these two integration processes to each other ,” he said. 

The premier said that Armenia will make its final decision on the matter when it becomes clear what this structure is. 

In November 2011, the presidents of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed a declaration on Eurasian economic integration – a "road map" of the integration process with the ultimate goal of establishing the Eurasian Economic Union.

The idea of the Eurasian Union was first proposed in 1994 by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In early October 2011, in an article for "Izvestia" daily Russia’s Putin wrote that the Eurasian Union could be set up on the basis of the customs union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The article said the Eurasian Union is not an attempt to restore former Soviet Union or replace the CIS, but an effective "link" between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, with close coordination of economic and monetary policies of member states. -0--