YEREVAN - Russian President Vladimir Putin was expected late Thursday in Armenia for a visit aimed at securing a vow of loyalty from Moscow's ex-Soviet ally.
Putin, accompanied on the day-and-a-half working visit by his wife Lyudmilla, was due to dine with the Armenian presidential couple before addressing the main reason for his visit on Friday.
The Russian leader will hold talks with his counterpart President Robert Kocharian and take part in a ceremony to mark the opening of the Year of Russia in Armenia.
The problem of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in the heart of Azerbaijan, will be discussed.
And the construction of a gas pipeline between Armenia and Iran, which is viewed unfavourably by Moscow, was also to feature on the agenda.
The Karabakh war erupted before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1988 and escalated after Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent, ending in a ceasefire in 1994 with over one million people displaced and 25,000 killed.
Russia co-chairs, with France and the United States, the Minsk group, tasked by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe with finding a negotiated solution to the dispute.
03/24/2005 12:18 GMT