Armenia still may revive association negotiations with EU, parliament member says
03.09.2014,
15:26
Armenia still may revive negotiations on association with the EU, Aleksandr Arzumanyan, a parliament member from the opposition Heritage parliamentary faction, said today, exactly one year after Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan made a U-turn at a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow stating that Armenia intends to join the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
YEREVAN, September 3. /ARKA/. Armenia still may revive negotiations on association with the EU, Aleksandr Arzumanyan, a parliament member from the opposition Heritage parliamentary faction, said today, exactly one year after Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan made a U-turn at a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow stating that Armenia intends to join the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
Speaking to reporters, Arzumanyan, who served as a foreign minister, said many European officials agree now that it was wrong to demand that Armenia made a clear choice between the Russia-led Customs Union and the association with the EU, ‘because the association agreement with the EU was 90 percent an economic development, like Armenia’s anticipated accession to the Eurasian Economic Union.”
He said Armenia ‘is doomed to have good relations with Russia, EU and the USA.” “We should maneuver, not to chose between paths,’ he said.
According to him, Russia may benefit from having an ally integrating with the EU.
On September 1 this year, Russian president Putin ordered the signing of the agreement on Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union. Earlier, Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev said that the issue of Armenia’s accession to the bloc would be resolved at the summit of the Eurasian Union in Minsk on October 10. -0-
