KOCHARIAN AND MINISTERS PLAN FIRST STATE VISIT TO

UNCLAS YEREVAN 001624 SIPDIS SENSITIVE DEPT FOR EUR/CACEN, EUR/ACE, EUR/PGI, EAP/CM, DRL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV CH AM SUBJECT: KOCHARIAN AND MINISTERS PLAN FIRST STATE VISIT TO CHINA SEPTEMBER 26-30 Sensitive But Unclassified. Please protect accordingly. -------------- -- MAJOR DELEGATION EXPECTED FOR FIRST STATE VISIT -------------- -- ¶1. (SBU) MFA sources confirmed July 20 that Armenian President Robert Kocharian would travel to China September 26-30. The GOAM had not yet made this information public but will likely announce it to the press July 21 or 22. Several GOAM Foreign Ministers have traveled to China in the past as part of international conferences, but this trip will be the GOAM's first state visit to China. Sources close to the President's office said Kocharian was planning to invite up to seven cabinet-level ministers on the trip, which would make it the largest GOAM delegation of its kind to date. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶2. (SBU) If these meetings indeed come together, substantive discussion will not likely go beyond the prospects for further economic cooperation and policy collaboration in international fora. Kocharian will no doubt attempt to portray the trip as evidence of an increased political profile vis-a-vis Turkey and Azerbaijan. Pundits will attempt to link the visit with a perceived change in Armenia's longtime policy of "complementarity" between the U.S. and Russia. If nothing else, the trip will add an unexpected factor into local political discussion this fall which was otherwise poised to center around the opposition's expected return to parliament and familiar foreign policy issues surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and relations with Turkey. ORDWAY