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On March 12, the Chair of the RA NA Standing Committee on Defense and Security Andranik Kocharyan met with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Republic of Armenia Bernhard Matthias Kiesler, the Member of the Supervisory Board in the German Bundestag Reinhold Robbe and the Head of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES)/Foundation South Caucasus Regional Office Felix Hett.

Andranik Kocharyan welcomed the guests’ visit to the parliament and highlighted the debates to be held in the National Assembly of Armenia on March 13 within the framework of the NATO Week , which related to the problems of the parliamentary oversight problems in the system of defense.

He has presented to the guests the constitutional amendments and the political realities occurred in Armenia on the previous day, underlining that they are considered as a real opportunity to develop the parliamentarism. In this issue the Committee Chair highlighted the support of the European countries, particularly Germany with experience of parliamentary government.

The interlocutors have discussed issues on further cooperation, which mainly related to the protection of the servicemen’s rights, the investment of the building integrity in the sphere of defense and the mechanisms of the implementation of the parliamentary oversight and the legislative amendments.

Ambassador Bernhard Matthias Kiesler informed that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Germany expressed readiness to continue the advisory service by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF) to Armenia, particularly to the Committee, which started in 2017.

Reinhold Robbe thanked his Armenian colleagues for the reception and presented the his experience while working as a Commissioner for the Armed Forces in the Bundestag and the positive influence of the structure in the servicemen’s life.

The interlocutors highlighted the further cooperation and the exchange of experience and discussed some working items. Within the framework of cooperation the sides paid special attention to the Armenian-German Parliamentary Friendship Group.

The German guest touched upon the Velvet revolution and noted that they attentively and with interest observed the political great changes and extraordinary parliamentary elections that happened in our country. He expressed hope that the changes would have a positive impact on the further development of Armenia.