trunk's decision to engage north korea are just two examples pax americana is undergoing a significant transformation. this is harlan kentucky. over all of this move them poised to go to st fanny's. a co money city with almost no coal mines left. the jobs are gone all the polis the fed ex. love to see these people the survivors of disappearing before their eyes. i remember thinking when i was younger that if anything ever happened to the coal mines here that it would become a ghost town but i never thought in a million years i would see that and it's happened it's happened.

yeah welcome to all of us today we're here at park hyatt hotel and we'll be talking to nicole question yand the prime minister. who visited thought she months ago and is now in the russian capital welcome to moscow mr persian yen. thank you very much . i'd like to start by asking you this since you're visiting russia does that mean those who feared our countries would grow apart were wrong. yes of course even now many people say so and there are many publications in the russian media where authors don't seem to quite grasp what's happened and what is happening in armenia there are forces who want to paint it in a different light they want to make it look like anti russian political forces have come to power in armenia but as i keep saying there was no geopolitical or foreign policy related dimension to the armenian revolution and as i keep saying there was

no geopolitical plot it was a purely internal process that had to do only with armenia it's important to emphasize that and we say that this process will not result in a foreign policy utan why do we say that because our people the people who made the revolution happen had no problem with armenia as foreign policy so they had no demands in terms of foreign policy and the way the government represent the people who started the revolution and prevailed so we must act within the limits and demands of this political process this velvet revolution so i want to say yes those who said the political changes in armenia will lead to problems in armenian russian relations were wrong they've always been wrong and they always will be wrong if they stick to this point of view. correct me if i'm wrong but you say that not only to russian journalists but in the course of meetings as world rights i have a question about that do your counterparts hear you and believe you and tell us about how your personal relationship with president vladimir putin is develop. i

think we have a very good straightforward kind of communication it's been like that from minute one i can tell you that our relationship is the kind that has no dark corners we discuss everything openly we put forward all the questions directly and answer them directly mr putin is this sort of person as far as i understand he's very comfortable with this kind of communication and to be honest so am i so we communicate in a straightforward way not leaving any dark corners what do i mean by dark corners it's very important that everything in our relations is clear apparent and genuine it doesn't mean that we'll have no issues whatsoever but it does mean is that we will have frank discussions about all those issues without resorting to any tricks or political maneuvers which i think is very good i can assure you that our relations are developing in a fast and constructive way what's the most pressing issue at the moment. truth be told we have no such issues right now but russia and armenia

a sovereign state in general i think in many aspects the interests of our countries align but they could be some areas or issues on which we might disagree i believe it's very important to maintain the atmosphere we have right now and i hope that's the atmosphere in which we will be discussing any issues we might have in the future i think we will be able to come to an agreement. let's talk about natural gas which as i understand is one of the issues we heard on the one hand you said that people in armenia don't feel that russian gas is cheap. yes but we discussed it and came to the conclusion that it's a domestic issue for us because yes armenia gets cheap natural gas from russia at the border but by the time it's delivered to the customers the price has doubled that's a domestic issue we have to figure out and resolve within armenia and it has nothing to do with our relations with russia. so as the lurch to get supplies from russia you're not going to renegotiate the price and you haven't discussed that with. well

you know we hope to get even cheaper gas of course and we need cheaper gas even though we know we buy it at a low price set exclusively for armenia but we would like to have even more exclusivity in this regard we'll be discussing these issues of course and i hope we will succeed. let's talk about your relations with the e.u. you're waiting for the ratification of your partnership agreement how soon do you expect that to happen and how will armenia benefit from it exactly the ratification process in e.u. countries has already begun this agreement involves reforming armenia's legal system and that's been underway in armenia for many years i'd say twenty or even more but of course we'll be developing our relations with the european union but as i keep saying it won't be happening at the expense of armenian russian relations and vice versa so we won't be developing our median russian relations at the expense of our relations with the e.u. for example that's our policy we won't adhere to a policy that implies developing relations with one international partner at the

expense of relations with other partners and i believe we should be reliable partners for everyone every global act we have ties with our relationship be transparent to all sides and should rely on the principle of reciprocity we all should act in good faith what i mean is that for example it should be unambiguously clear for the west what is happening between armenia and russia what russia should enjoy just the same kind of transparency when it comes to ties between armenia and the e.u. certainly we will continue developing our relations with the e.u. us iran georgia and other states alike but that's not going to be done at the expense of our ties with russia and vice versa what we have with russia is not going to affect relations with any other country you told me that this instagram process between armenia and the west has been ongoing for some time will this process you know gather speed or remain the same with well it's not integration as such because integration in terms of economic cooperation is what we were. um

within the eurasian economic community as for the e.u. it's a process of reforming our state legislation system adverse it cannot be called integration in its classical meaning that if you want to call it that way then this is rather about coupling our legal frameworks certainly there's an economic element to it but it's not economic integration it is partnership we have a specific trade regime with them the same kind of regime with georgia in the us conventionally speaking economic integration is what we do within the framework of the eurasian economic community. so when it comes to the year you object to using the term integration. it's not that i have any objections i simply state the fact as it is. the prime minister of the meeting with the russian ambassador you announce the beginning of a new stage in cultivating relations with russia so on the one hand you say nothing changes but on the other you mention a new stage what exactly will be new i didn't say there would be no changes i said

that we would not be shifting into reverse i hope and i'm almost certain that now we will be developing our relations even more efficiently when i say a new stage i mean more positive more meaningful and more productive also more straightforward more candid and transparent this is what i mentioned in the beginning relations without any dark corners it's not that what we all see in those corners satisfies all of us in every way what i say is that we frankly voice our opinion and our concerns and we should all do that during the meeting with vladimir putin we had no problems finding common ground we settled some matters immediately and agreed to discuss others in greater detail later again there were no problems encountered during the talks with. you and elz entering the new stage and as i understand your north that is fied with how it all started right. yes that's true i can say for sure that now judging by the outcomes of two summits there are no political problems between armenia and russia. and did you and limit

putin touch upon the cooperation between armenia and the west the e.u. . we didn't discuss it during our latest meeting but we did talk about that in sochi and i've already described what kind of conversation we had. well some mass media say that you might be nominated for the nobel peace prize and in russia many think that you are quite popular in the west what do you think about that opinion and the rumor i just mentioned frankly speaking i don't know whether i'm popular in the west or not as for the nobel prize nomination i learned that from the media too . and what if it really happens and someone decides to nominate you all right then it would be nice.

i'm going to. get a phone no i don't have one was the last time that you went on the internet no i'm not using to meet these village is it safe to say. are you sure there's new music ters author of it all good maybe should do the baby does a glossy his who's the. one who want to say we're the only four. is dead as part of those who could be. a. bit more work i was. previously yes' and no they are being false form of words and most of the member of the society will be left out of. the.

short term gains at the expense of a longer term growth saudia set of vesting is to feature in the end products and employees you're taking all of future revenues if you're booking it today just like the man is buying back all the stuff in his own store yes he bought back all of a stuff in his story he has a lot of revenue but now my store is empty and he has nothing to sell so the next quarter he says my sales are zero because i have nothing in the store to sell i bought it all myself so similarly with apple fell by about all their stock they wanted vast in the future and when it comes time to report earnings in a year or two from now they'll have nothing to report.

regarding your anti corruption campaign what have you already accomplished as prime minister and the what pace the you fighting it one you expected or maybe you're somewhat behind or ahead of the players. you know i can say that we have put an end to corruption in armenia in such a small amount of time yes in that little time we had i can say that for sure because all of armenia stands against corruption these days there might be some small occurrences though but these are just the remnants of the corruption we had we will continue our fight and will eradicate them to really these are simply residual effects when there are no corruption pyramid's within government structures and officials themselves behind the wheel it means that corruption is gone and i'm confident that this is the case with armenia certainly relapses are possible but i believe that the work we're doing can safeguard us against that including in the long run. i'm somewhat surprised to see you saying with such confidence that there is no corruption in armenia only some residual effects how

did you do that so. that's my political conviction that the system of corruption in armenia was run from the top echelons of power and now that these higher echelons are no longer involved in corruption something i can guarantee the system of corruption that used to exist in armenia is no longer there there may be some remnants of it left and we must work hard to ensure that a new system wont to rise on top of the old one wish. that in order to ensure that corruption is gone for good some changes are in order is that correct. certainly but the problem is there have already been many reforms carried out in armenia so the important thing is that reforms are complying with the quality of our legislation is quite high including our anti corruption laws in fact i'd say that our legislation is one of the best among the c.i.s. countries but our problem was a lack of political will as they say it's like we had two parallel realities one

was what is described in the laws and the other was what was actually happening our main goal now is to synchronize these to reality in other words make it so that laws are implemented in practice of course there are parts of the legislation that are unreasonable and need to be changed we are going to reform these laws so that a lawful reality is possible so to speak. with there being cases within the c.i.s. i'm not going to cite any specific examples when during the shift of political elites it was said that the key goal is to put the right people into the right positions and this is a lot like what you're saying but then people started to notice the old elites seeping back into power and some time of that they said nothing had really changed how can you guarantee that your case is different and what are you going to do to ensure that i think the best guarantee here is the will of the people i'm pretty confident the people won't say nothing has changed because it was the people's own way of thinking that changed i believe that's an important factor that allowed for

a peaceful revolution without violent clashes or a single drop of blood or the fight was inside every citizen's mind and when the struggle is internalized you're very unlikely to harm those around you this is why our revolution was so peaceful and positive it was a revolution of unity i believe that the main outcome of our revolution was not a shift of power but a shift in thinking like the armenian people the whole nation started to think differently this has nothing to do with the government because it's already happened and there won't be a return to the old ways the people realize that their position and their views were a key factor they realized it wasn't one single person or even one hundred people that forged this new reality this was our shared endeavor we've all been involved in it when we renounce the old crooked reality it just collapsed because all this time it had been standing on our own shoulders by refusing to support this corrupt .