News

On 9 October in Yerevan, the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Andrius Krivas participated in the political consultations with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Garen Nazarian and discussed possibilities to enhance bilateral cooperation between Lithuania and Armenia, cooperation within international organizations, relations between Armenia and the European Union, and issues of importance to the South Caucasus region.

Lithuania’s Foreign Vice-Minister Krivas welcomed the increasing bilateral trade volume. The head of the Lithuanian delegation highlighted Lithuania’s interest in further deepening bilateral economic and trade cooperation with Armenia. He drew his Armenian counterpart’s attention to the high-quality production and services in the fields ranging from Lithuania’s healthcare, food industry, furniture manufacturing to information technology and logistics. Lithuania’s Foreign Vice-Minister also voiced Lithuania’s support for Armenia in the implementation of its political, economic and social reforms and underscored the importance of consensus in carrying out the country’s constitutional reform.

The Vice-Minister Krivas stressed that Lithuania was ready to share its expertise with Armenia and that he particularly valued the countries’ cooperation to implement the EU Twinning Projects.

As regards the EU-Armenia cooperation, Krivas said that negotiating the new legally binding agreement was a priority of the bilateral agenda, and that Lithuania was interested to open the negotiations in the short run. Krivas emphasized that it was important for Armenia to continue making progress, as recorded in the Joint Declaration of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga, implementing the EU-Armenia visa facilitation and readmission agreements. This will open up opportunities to start a visa liberalisation dialogue.

The sides reaffirmed their readiness to hold the first session of the Lithuania-Armenia Intergovernmental Commission on Bilateral Economic Cooperation on 26 and 27 November 2015 in Vilnius. Lithuania’s Foreign Vice-Minister noted that the Commission would provide a framework for meetings between representatives of institutions and businesses of the two countries.

On 10-11 October, Krivas is participating in the Ministerial Conference of the International Organisation of La Francophonie in Yerevan.