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On April 25, the Vice President of the RA National Assembly Hakob Arshakyan met with the delegation led by the Deputy Speaker of the People’s Assembly of the Arab Republic of Syria Muhammad Al-Ajlani, who is in our country to take part in the events dedicated to the 109^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The members of the NA Armenia-Syria Friendship Group Knyaz Hasanov, Shirak Torosyan and Rustam Bakoyan, the deputy Alkhas Ghazaryan also took part in the meeting.

Welcoming the guests, the RA NA Deputy Speaker documented that the Armenian-Syrian relations are of special significance for our country: In the history of the Armenian people Syria was of crucial importance.

“We remember with gratitude the Syrian people’s warm attitude in open arms, at the beginning of the 20^th century giving asylum and caring attitude of the Syrian people to the Armenians who survived genocide,” Hakob Arshakyan noted. The important role of the Syrian-Armenian community in strengthening the Armenian-Syrian warm and partnership relations was underscored.

The RA NA Vice President touched upon in detail the regional challenges and the security problems, the forcible displacement of the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh, the aspirations of Azerbaijan towards the sovereign territory of Armenia. He also spoke up the problem of Armenian prisoners of war and the illegally civilian hostages held in jail in Baku.

Speaking about the positive developments, the launch of the delimitation and demarcation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the norms stipulated by the Alma-Ata Declaration was noted. Hakob Arshakyan reaffirmed that there is no alternative for the establishment of peace in our region, and Armenia always stands for peace.

In this context the NA Vice President presented the Crossroads of Peace project initiated by the Government of Armenia. It is aimed at the unblocking of the regional infrastructure, which is also a pledge for the development of the countries and establishment of regional peace.

The NA Vice President highlighted the support of Syria to the sovereignty and territorial integrity, reaffirming the Armenian side’s position on the territorial integrity of Syria and overcoming with inner forces all the conflicts.

The Deputy Speaker of the People’s Assembly of Syria underlined that the Syrian side supports the efforts of Armenia directed to the establishment of peace and expressed conviction that all the nations, who are advocates of peace will be next to the Armenian people. Muhammad Al-Ajlani expressed his support to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Armenia, as well as to the ongoing delimitation and demarcation process, noting that all the territories that belong to Armenia should be returned to Armenia under international law. As a guideline of overcoming the settlement of the relations, the Deputy Speaker mentioned the exclusion of speaking in the language of animosity.

The parties stressed the special significance of inter-parliamentary interaction in strengthening the bases of mutually beneficial cooperation.

In this context the activity of the Parliamentary Friendship Groups was greatly emphasized. The Armenian parliamentarians highly assessed the brotherly attitude of the authorities and the people of Syria towards the Syrian Armenians, and one of the manifestations is the presence of the MPs of Armenian origin in the People’s Assembly.

Reference was made to the perspectives of enhancing the bilateral cooperation and the steps aimed at boosting the relations.