YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian summed up the results of his official visit to the State of Qatar, his Office told Armenpress.

The President praised the fact that his ties, meetings and ideas of many years today serve for Armenia and its people.

“I know this country quite well, I visited here for many years, have many friends both within the leadership, business and scientific circles. I am happy that my ties, meetings and ideas today serve for our country, state and people”, the President told reporters, introducing his visit, the meetings and agreements reached in Doha.

He highlighted the cancellation of visas for the Armenian citizens by Qatar.

“The visit was quite intensive. The results are very clear: both sides announced about very close relations. The clear result is that no visa is required from the Armenian citizens for visiting Qatar. The tourism between Armenia and Qatar will develop very quickly. This will also open a door for the businessmen to visit Qatar, see the opportunities which are quite great. And vice versa, the Qataris will visit Armenia to see the investment opportunities. The next part of the visit was the invitation of Sheikha Moza. She is the mother of the Emir, is known to the whole world with her vision on science and education development. Their results are enviable as they have established the Qatar Foundation, which is a huge international educational platform. Our meeting results opened doors. I hope our state figures, educational and research institutions, as well as individuals, who would like to study here, can come to study. I will be happy for our youth to receive education here and then return back to the homeland”, the Armenian President said.

As for the practical relations, the President said there are several directions, but Qatar is first of all interested in the latest technologies.

“Our first talk at the WISE Summit was about the artificial intelligence. Every person understands that without artificial intelligence they cannot use spacecraft tomorrow, manage the latest technologies, even education and scientific-research works would be impossible. Therefore, artificial intelligence is very important. I invited the Qatar leader to pay an official visit to Armenia, I also invited the partners and Sheikha Moza to participate in several international conferences in Armenia. One of them is the Armenian Summit of Minds and the next one is STARMUS festival on science, technologies and universe. They are very interested in visiting Armenia. They are very interested in the new technologies, spend huge money for the development of this field, and we in our turn have a potential. We still do not have that industry, but have talented programmers who can become the base of that industry. But we need to work a lot and support that field because each sector needs support to reach to a global level. All our neighbor and the remaining countries, the whole world believe that the future of their country and the world is linked with the new technologies. In other words, we are also in a competition, and in order to ensure the best ideas and funding we should provide conditions, talented people, good universities, good education system, perhaps also a financial, tax support. We should show that they can have an opportunity to realize their outcome in much bigger, the Eurasian market through us”, the Armenian President said.

He touched upon the food safety which is important both for Qatar, the Persian Gulf countries and Armenia. Sarkissian said the food safety is not the safety of its quality, but to have an equally distributed, constant, stable production and import.

“Being one of the richest countries in the world Qatar has numerous mechanisms and foundations which are investing in different countries and various areas, starting from mining industry to agriculture. Armenia can attract financial investments”, he said.

In conclusion, the President said his visit in some sense opens a new page in the Armenia-Qatar relations, which has the support of Qatar and its leadership. “Upon returning to Yerevan I would encourage that these relations develop very actively”, Armen Sarkissian added.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan