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Yesterday, within the working visit paid to Belgium, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at NATO Headquarters. President Sargsyan and Jens Stoltenberg summed up the results of the talks during the joint press conference.

The Department of Public Relations and Mass Media of the RA President’s Office has presented the remarks made by the NATO Secretary General at the joint press conference with the RA President. The full speech is as follows:

Mr. President,

Warm welcome to NATO Headquarters. It’s a pleasure to meet you again. We last met at NATO Summit in Warsaw in July last year.

And I also welcome our very constructive and interesting discussions we just had in our meeting. And I also welcome the partnership that we have developed, between NATO and Armenia, over many years. That is good for Armenia, and it’s good for NATO. And I also welcome that in our meeting we discussed how we can take that partnership further and continue to strengthen the cooperation between Armenia and NATO.

We have developed our partnership over many years; in fact, this year is the 25th anniversary of you joining the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. It was a crucial time following the end of the Cold War. It proved to be the foundation of our partnership and we have built on that partnership over many years. You attended the Warsaw Summit because of your country’s important contribution to NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan. Thank you very much for Armenia’s presence and contributions to NATO’s military presence in Afghanistan fighting terrorism.

Armenia also contributes forces to our KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, helping keep the Western Balkans stable. Armenian troops are helping to bring stability to those countries and we are very grateful for your contributions, helping to make EuroAtlantic area safer and more secure.

The NATO Alliance is committed to working with you, as well as other partners, because cooperation between NATO and Armenia is in both our interest. Together, we are developing a new, individual Partnership Action Plan, tailored to your needs and requirements and I see opportunities for us to cooperate more closely on interoperability, defense reform and defense education. NATO and our Allies have considerable expertise in defense and security sector reforms. Armenia can draw upon these resources.

I also want to congratulate you on your participation in the Building Integrity program to counter corruption in the armed forces and your progress on implementing the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women peace and security. These are important steps for all of us.

We also discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I am concerned about the continuing violence along the line of contact, including this weekend. It is important to avoid escalation, because there is no military solution to this conflict and its persistence is holding back the region. So we encourage both Armenia and Azerbaijan to return to the negotiating table and to work towards a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. NATO fully supports the Minsk Group process to that end.

So thank you once again, for coming here today and thank you so much for our close partnership, which, I think, is good for Armenia and good for NATO.
Thank you so much!”