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On October 22 the representatives of the factions of RA National Assembly: the head of the RPA faction Galust Sahakyan, the head of the ARF faction Vahan Hovhannisyan, the secretary of the Country of Law faction Artsruni Aghajanyan, the member of the Prosperous Armenia faction Naira Zohrabyan, the head of the Heritage faction Styopa Safaryan and the member of the same faction Anahit Bakhshyan met with the Vice President of Euronest PA, Rapporteur on the Black Sea Region Trajan Ungureanu, Shadow Rapporteur on Armenia Andrey Kovachev and Honourable Consul of the Republic of Armenia to Luxembourg Frank Engel, who represented the European People’s Party (EPP).

Welcoming the guests the head of the NA RPA faction highly assessed the activation of the EU-Armenia relationship, ensuring that the European integration was one of the most important directions of Armenia’s foreign policy. The member of the Prosperous Armenia Naira Zohrabyan emphasized the objective awareness of the international structures on Armenia and expressed hope that the visit of the representatives of the European Parliament, and this meeting was of great importance with regards to getting unbiased information.

The sides discussed issues concerning the development of Armenia’s cooperation, expansion of partnership relations.

Touching upon the works of the Euronest, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership, the head of the Armenian delegation in the Assembly Vahan Hovhannisyan indicated two methodological mistakes, which were in that structure. One of them is that 60 representatives from the EU are represented in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership not only according to the countries, but also according to factions, whereas 6 countries are represented from the Eastern Partnership, and because the agendas are different. The other methodological mistake that double standards are applied, in particular, in the case of Belarus, which is very gently evaded in case of Azerbaijan. Mr Hovhannisyan proposed to give the Armenian delegation a status of an observer in the European Parliament for settling these problems.

Mr Andrey Kovachev touched upon the biased resolution adopted in the EU, which on one hand, had caused Armenia’s dissatisfaction, and on the other hand had become a material of speculation for Azerbaijan in Karabakh issue and ensured that they were in Armenia to get objective information about our country, to make closer EU-Armenia relations. He ensured that in this context the issue of giving Armenia status of observer would be also discussed.

Responding to Mr Kovachev, Vahan Hovhannisyan noticed that the rules of the game should be the same: Armenia proposed to remove the reasons of the conflict, and Aproposed to remove the reasons of the conflict, and Azerbaijan proposed to remove the consequences of the conflict. Here, the trap is emerged, as the consequences are more visible. We shall keep balance, removing the reasons.

The head of the Heritage faction Styopa Safaryan expressed concern that each such resolution can be a reason for reducing trust and integration towards the European structures.

The heads of the RPA and ARF factions Galust Sahakyan and Vahan Hovhannisyan, in response to the guests’ questions say that the Minsk Group, with deviations, is the most specialized international structure on Karabakh issue, which has accumulated experience, material and culture of being related with two peoples, so replacing it with any international structure can have unprecedented consequences. Mr. Sahakyan added that if today Armenia did not want to formally put the issue of the independence of Karabakh, it was because of not violating the rules of the game. He noted with satisfaction that the problem of the peoples’ self-determination gradually became prior for the community.

During the meeting issues concerning Armenia-EU cooperation were also discussed.