There are issues that need to be raised and resolved. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia stated this in his address Monday to the participants of the Ninth Russian-Armenian Interregional Forum. The address runs as follows, in particular:
"Despite the difficult situation created as a result of the [recent military] aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, we still decided not to postpone the work events planned today, taking into account their importance from the point of view of the development of Armenian-Russian relations.
The interregional cooperation between Armenia and Russia has an important role in the development of the allied strategic partnership between our countries—contributing to the further expansion of the potential of bilateral cooperation.
It is not a secret that the purpose of the forums is to establish new connections in the trade, economic, educational, scientific, cultural, and a number of other domains, and to reinterpret the already established partnership relations.
Although this forum is the ninth in number, and there already are established connections and partnership relations at the interregional level, there are still issues that need to be raised and resolved year after year.
Every year, the forums are held under new themes, and this year's theme—"Russian-Armenian Cooperation: New Challenges and Opportunities"—is more contemporary and ambitious.
For us, the active implementation of important projects at the interregional level is promising, which is aimed at ensuring the further growth of the national economies of our countries, strengthening their competitiveness in the world markets, introducing advanced technologies.
There is no doubt that in the case of using the full potential of interregional decentralized cooperation, we will manage to bring a new quality to the lives of the residents of our provinces.
In this context, we can record that today's forum is another step in the promotion of Armenian-Russian decentralized cooperation, which was formed and is developing thanks to perseverance and proactiveness of the regions of both countries."
