Sargsyan, Medvedev discussed situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met Tuesday with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan in Sochi to discuss the situation surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia and questions relating to their bilateral economic cooperation, the Kremlin's press office reported.



Welcoming the guest, the Russian President said, "We meet regularly. The last time we talked in detail was during your visit to Moscow. The visit was informative and, in my opinion, our dialogue continues to evolve. You know its results. There is nevertheless even more potential for growth. I think that we will also talk about economic problems.



But I will not hide the fact that I would like to exchange opinions on international issues and foreign policy. In just a few days the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization will start. Armenia will assume the presidency. I think that we can reflect on how to organize our work and share our thoughts in this regard. Especially since we have not seen each other since Georgia committed an aggression against South Ossetia."



For his part, President Sargsyan said that working meetings in Sochi between the presidents of Russia and Armenia have become a very good tradition. "They represent a very good opportunity to calmly discuss both our bilateral relations as well as our relations in multilateral formats. So I really am happy. All the more so since, as you just mentioned, in these coming days Armenia will assume the presidency of the CSTO. By the way, we have recently held Rubezh-2008, the CSTO joint command and staff exercises, a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the CSTO, and tomorrow in Yerevan a meeting of the CSTO Security Council Secretaries will take place. I am therefore glad that we are meeting today.



Of course I would also like to discuss economic issues, further strengthening and deepening our relations within the CSTO and, of course, the situation that has developed in our region of the Caucasus.



This is our first meeting after the events in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia. We talked about this over the phone. I would like to once again express my condolences over the loss of human life - Russian citizens, peacekeepers - my regret that the events developed the way they did, and wishes that the consequences of this humanitarian catastrophe can be eliminated as quickly as possible. Incidentally, in Armenia we have already been waiting for schoolchildren from South Ossetia for two weeks now. We have prepared educational laboratories in physics, chemistry and biology. We want to do everything we can to help mitigate these consequences."