By Sebastian Alison<\/p>\n
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — Russian President Dmitry
\nMedvedev today visits Armenia, the country’s
\nclosest ally in the South Caucasus, on his first
\ntrip to the region since Russia fought a war with Georgia in August.<\/p>\n
This will be Medvedev’s fifth meeting this year
\nwith Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, and the
\nfirst outside Russia, his office said in an
\ne-mailed statement issued in Moscow ahead of the trip.<\/p>\n
“This is a clear demonstration of the high level
\nof political dialogue aimed at further
\nstrengthening relations of strategic partnership
\nand unity between Russia and Armenia,” it said.<\/p>\n
The former Soviet republic of Armenia doesn’t
\nborder Russia, from which it’s separated by
\nGeorgia and Azerbaijan. As it doesn’t have
\ndiplomatic relations with Azerbaijan after a war
\nover the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, all
\nof its trade with Russia, its main foreign trade
\npartner, is routed through Georgia.<\/p>\n
This includes natural gas, with Armenia depending
\non a Soviet- era pipeline which crosses Georgia
\nfor its supplies. Russian gas monopoly OAO
\nGazprom owns 67.9 percent of Armenian gas company
\nZAO ArmRosGazprom and on Sept. 16 agreed to
\ngradual gas price increases as part of its policy
\nof cutting subsidies to former Soviet republics.<\/p>\n
This gradual approach contrasts with past threats
\nto cut supplies altogether to Ukraine and
\nBelarus. It foresees prices rising to
\n“European” levels by 2011, Gazprom said in a
\nSept. 16 statement. Russian gas continued flowing
\nacross Georgia to Armenia even during the war
\nsparked by Georgian troops entering the breakaway
\nregion of South Ossetia to reclaim it on Aug. 7,
\nafter which the Russian army expelled them in a five-day rout.<\/p>\n
Russian-Armenian trade rose 13 percent in the
\nfirst eight months of this year compared with the
\nsame period in 2007, reaching $536.5 million, the
\nKremlin statement said. Russia has invested more
\nthan $1.6 billion in Armenia since the Soviet
\nUnion broke up in 1991, the statement said. Of
\nthat, $428 million was invested in the first half of 2008.<\/p>\n
Medvedev is due to arrive in the Armenian
\ncapital, Yerevan later today and will leave tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Sebastian Alison Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today visits Armenia, the country’s closest ally in the South Caucasus, on his first trip to the region since Russia fought a war with Georgia in August. This will be Medvedev’s fifth meeting this year with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, and the first outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":38128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenia","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}