News - NATO official: Armenia decided very clearly to make shift in foreign policy, take some distance from Russia

NATO is quite optimistic about the joint declaration that was signed by Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Javier Colomina, the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, stated this in an interview with the First Channel television of Georgia. "We believe it’s very good news. We have been very supportive of the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We’ve been supporting the efforts towards that normalization coming from the European Union or from the United States or the ones that have been carried out by Armenia and Azerbaijan bilaterally. We will continue to support those and hope for the best. It is fundamental indeed for us that stability in the Caucasus region is preserved, not only through the work that we do in Georgia, but also through the stability that could be brought from Armenia and Azerbaijan," added the NATO special representative. Answering the question of whether he sees an interest from Armenia in getting closer to NATO, Colomina noted that he believes Armenia has decided very clearly to make a shift in its foreign policy to take some distance from Russia. “It’s something that we have encouraged. The Armenians are free to take their own decisions, but they decided to do that and I believe they’re already starting to get closer to us – to ask for more cooperation, to ask for more political dialogue, to ask for more NATO presence and visibility in the relationship they have with us. We encourage whatever is decided by our partners that we believe is good for the stability of a region. That is very important for us," the NATO official added.