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On August 26 the RA NA President Galust Sahakyan received the parliamentary delegation from the Canadian Confederation comprised of MPs Brad Butt, Leon Benoit, Russ Hiebert, Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International organization, and its members Samuel Plett and Hany Poghosyan.

The RA NA Speaker Galust Sahakyan, welcoming the guests in the National Assembly, highlighted the political dialogue between Armenia and Canada and the further development of bilateral relations. In the RA NA Speaker’s word, both countries have good traditions of cooperation, and Armenia attaches a great importance to the deepening of interparliamentary ties.

Galust Sahakyan in developing interparliamentary ties highlighted friendship groups’ activities and noted that there is an Armenia-Canada Friendship Group in the RA National Assembly. The RA NA President highly assessed the effective cooperation of the Armenian and Canadian parliamentarians in the UN, Parliamentary Assembly of La Francophonie and in other authoritative international organizations.

Touching upon the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the RA NA Speaker Galust Sahakyan mentioned that Armenia pursues only the peaceful settlement of the problem and highly appreciates Canada's balanced position towards the NKR conflict settlement. Mr. Sahakayan stated that the year 2015 sees the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, and touching upon the condemnation of crimes against humanity, highly appreciated Canada's role in the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The RA NA President invited the guests to take part in the international conference entitled “Parliamentarians against Genocide” to be held in April 2015 in Yerevan.    

The members of the delegation thanked for the reception and noted that they had visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex that morning, and getting acquainted with the museum exhibits, they could fully feel the pain of the Armenian people. They kindly accepted the RA NA President’s invitation to attend the international conference and expressed an opinion that the issue of recognition of the Genocide is not only the problem of the Turkish authorities, but also that of the Turkish nation.

The participants of the meeting discussed other issues of mutual concern.