Opening Remarks by
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
at the Armenia-EU Parliamentary Cooperation Committee

I want to welcome the EU parliamentary delegation to Armenia. It has been a year since the
last PCC meeting took place in Strasbourg. Since then, Armenia's political dialogue with the EU has intensified. I want to thank you, the members of this delegation for your part in this process. Your active engagement on all fronts, in all areas, has been welcomed here in Armenia. Our ENP Action Plan consultations are going very well. We are told that we are near completion, and we are pleased that we will soon be ready to move on to the specific applications of the decisions in order to push Armenia down the road of development even faster. We are ready to transition out of the transition.

We are very open and honest about this process. We know where we want to be. We also know that we have a long and difficult road to travel to get there. Our successes are significant but not sufficient. During the President's visit to Brussels last year, as well as during troika meetings we have stressed that although this process is irreversible, we want to be and we need to be moving even faster than we are. The European Neighborhood Policy will give us the framework within which to work more closely with EU member states to strengthen our institutions and to upgrade our effectiveness, efficiency and standards in all social and economic spheres. Increased trade, EU integration in selected areas, people-to-people contacts, stronger judiciary, scientific exchanges - these are just some of the benefits that the Neighborhood Policy offers member countries and we intend to work deeply at all levels so that our society benefits from this special relationship.

In the political sphere, this region remains a focus of attention, both in terms of domestic development and foreign relations. We appreciated this delegation's initiative to organize and hold a special conference on the South Caucasus earlier this year. The European Parliament can and has played an important role in shaping EU policy in the South Caucasus. We look to the EU to play such a role in our region where there is still a fear of dividing lines, where peace is still fragile, where regional conflicts are still unresolved.

We appreciate the practical and principled position that the EU has adopted in the discussion on the possibility of a new rail line through the region instead of utilizing one that already exists. It is not always that expediency and values coincide, but in this case, they do and the EU has said it will oppose wasting precious resources for a short-sighted political agenda promoted by Azerbaijan. We appreciated the European Parliament's willingness to consider sending a monitoring team to Nakhicheven, in Azerbaijan, where tombstones of unspeakable religious and artistic value have been wiped out, by government collusion. We follow with great interest that in the context of Turkey's accession process, issues of human rights, freedoms and norms are raised and which affect us directly as well, as Turkey's immediate neighbor.

We look forward to continuing to work with the EU Special Representative to consult on these and other issues and enable the greatest and deepest possible exchange. His perspectives on this region, and our ability to work with him with EU institutions will be important so that mutual expectations and kinds of interaction are accurately gauged and therefore maximally productive.

Europe wants a Caucasus that is European. The Caucasus wants to be just that. I wish you luck in working together to make that a reality, sooner.