YEREVAN.- Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received on Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who has arrived on an official visit to Armenia.

Premier underscored that Russia is a strategic partner and Armenia has to expand and strengthen bilateral relations. “We will spare no effort to achieve this as it fully conforms to the interests of the Armenian people,” he said.

The Russian official said the countries approach 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with good results and numerous perspective projects.  

“We see cooperation development in all the fields and praise high role of the Armenian and Russian government,” Lavrov said.

The sides discussed issues related to operation of Hrazdan 5 power unit, establishment of free trade area, construction of new NPP unit as well as cooperation in other fields.

The officials gave appraisal of the pace of development of bilateral trade relations. One of the discussed topics was including of the Upper Lars in the row of Russia’s customs checkpoints which will enable to transport goods on which excise duty is charged.