Neither Belarus nor Kazakhstan oppose Armenia’s membership in EEU, Shavarsh Kocharyan says

YEREVAN, July 1. / ARKA /. Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan has denied today media allegations that Belarus and Kazakhstan are opposing Armenia's accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). 

"If these allegations were true the text of the treaty on Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union would not have been submitted by the bloc’s executive body for interstate approval. If a member state were against Armenia’s membership, it could have created a string of insurmountable obstacles," Kocharyan said today to reporters on the sidelines of an international conference in Yerevan.

Speaking at the Russian-led union’s most recent summit held in Astana on May 29, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan asked the three member states to ensure that the treaty is signed by June 15. They promised only that the text will be drafted by July 1. 

The Eurasian Economic Union treaty signed by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will enter into force on 1 January 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed at the May 29 summit that the treaty on Armenia’s accession to the union should be signed in the near future. 

The international conference in Yerevan on integration of national and regional peacekeeping capacities in the global peace operations system based on the principles and standards of the United Nations is organized by the Institute for National Strategic Studies of Armenian Defense Ministry, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security of the Moscow Institute of International Studies, the Russian Association of Political Science and some other organization.

The list of participants includes Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, CSTO Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov, representatives of CSTO Secretariat and political experts. --0---