January 24, 2007 - 14:04 AMT
Kocharian and Putin to discuss Karabakh settlement process
Armenian President Robert Kocharian will be the third guest in Putin's residence of Bocharov Ruchey (Sochi) in 2007. "The most urgent issues of bilateral cooperation and prospects of its development will be discussed," said Russian President's assistant Sergey Prikhodko. He said 'the atmosphere of the negotiations will be better than that of last year's talks when the parties discussed the gas prices.'

Prikhodko confessed that the rise in prices for Russian gas worsened the economic situation in Armenia. "The hard economic situation that emerged after the decision to stabilize the prices has been neutralized," he said.

According to Prikhodko, Vladimir Putin and Robert Kocharian will also refer to the development of investment cooperation. "Implementation of joint projects should boost the commodity turnover which grew with $200 million last years totaling in $500 million," he said.

Among international topics Prikhodko marked out cooperation within the CIS (the forthcoming informal summit of the CIS leaders) and the CSTO. The RF President's assistant also said that Putin and Kocharian will discuss the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. "We stand for elaboration of bilateral decisions at the presidential level with further submission to Minsk Group," Prikhodko said.

He also informed that Vladimir Putin is going to brief to the Armenian President on the Russian-Georgian relations, since Georgia is Armenia's close neighbor, reports RIA Novosti.