YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–Russia’s Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said the joint Armenian-Russian political declaration and an agreement on friendship–cooperation and mutual assistance signed Thursday should give a new impetus to the development of political–cultural and–particularly–economic relations between the two countries–Radio Liberty reported.
The source reported that these documen’s open new path for implementation of big joint projects in various sectors–in particular–in the sectors of energy and transport. The Russian Premier emphasized the importance of setting up joint Russian-Armenian enterprises. He believes that the agreement will have a positive effect on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.
At a news conference which took place the same day–Levon Ter-Petrosyan was reported to have said that the problem of Karabakh had been discussed in all his meetings with Russian officials. But unlike Chernomyrdin–Ter-Petrosyan was not inclined to view the provisions of the agreement pertaining to mutual assistance as a means to attain a superiority over Azerbaijan in the military aspect and–consequently–as a means to resolve the Karabakh problem in Armenia’s favor–or as a means for joint resistance to the threat of NATO. "The agreement concerns only the internal relations between our countries and regulates our obligations in case if either country is subjected to an aggression," Ter-Petrosyan stressed.