Today, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan received Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his delegation.
In his welcoming speech, Prime Minister Pashinyan noted.
"Dear Mr. Minister, dear members of the delegation,
I welcome all of you. We have always valued our relations with India, we have always had warm relations. Frankly, I'm surprised that you are the first Indian Foreign Minister to visit Armenia. This is really amazing because the impressions are that India in Armenia and Armenia in India are very visibly represented. But maybe that fact has a certain symbol in it, we have a lot of missing work that we have to do to fill the gap.
I am very happy and thankful for your commitment to intensify our work. I remember, after your meeting with our Foreign Minister in Dushanbe, we had a conversation, and his assessment was also that we have a lot of opportunities, which we may not have used properly, and now we have to do everything to fill the gaps.
But I also want you to know that we not only want to express readiness, but we also have concrete ideas, suggestions on what we should cooperate on. I must emphasize that we recorded this intention, atmosphere and agenda during our meeting with Prime Minister Modi in 2019 in New York, at that time we agreed that it’s time to make our actions more specified.
But you know, unfortunately, the coronavirus hit immediately afterwards. We have learned to work under the coronavirus conditions and I hope we will move forward.
Mr. Minister, I again welcome your visit to Armenia. I hope it will be historic not only in terms of statistics, but also in terms of content. "
In his turn, the Indian Foreign Minister noted,
“Thank you, Your Excellency. Mr. Prime Minister, first of all, let me convey the greetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He remembers his meeting with you in 2019 and attaches great importance to my visit. Your Excellency, to be honest, I was also very surprised to learn that no Indian Foreign Minister had visited Armenia. I discovered this fact when I first met my colleague Ararat Mirzoyan in Dushanbe. I want to assure you that even if we have missed to do what we should have done in the past, there is great attention to our important relations today. I agree with you, we have a very good attitude to one another and history, but we must take practical, tangible steps to push our relations forward”.
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia welcomed the practical disposition of India, reaffirmed Armenia's readiness to enrich the Armenian-Indian partnership with new mutually beneficial initiatives.
The interlocutors stressed that the Armenia-India political dialogue is at a high level, and it is necessary to focus more on economic programs, taking into account the existence of great untapped economic potential. The Indian Foreign Minister offered to organize a business forum or send a business mission to Armenia. Prime Minister Pashinyan welcomed the idea, considering it a mutually beneficial opportunity to get acquainted with the investment opportunities of Armenia on the spot and to activate the Armenian-Indian business ties. An agreement was reached to take concrete steps.
Nikol Pashinyan and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar considered the educational cooperation a successful example of the Armenian-Indian partnership and shared the opinion that in the spirit of that successful cooperation, it’s necessary to develop ties in the spheres of infrastructure, tourism, pharmaceuticals, information technologies, diamond making and and other spheres.
At the end of the meeting, the Indian Foreign Minister expressed confidence with his visit a new intensive Armenian-Indian partnership will kick off.
