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On July 12, on the initiative of the deputy of the RA NA My Step Gayane Abrahamyan a debate was organized on the problems of the refugees and asylum seekers. The Representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Anna-Carin Ost, the MPs, representatives from the Government and a number of NGOs took part in the meeting.

Gayane Abrahamyan has noted that the refugees and the asylum seekers are considered to be more vulnerable and in terms of protection of their rights demand more attention. According to her, the creation of the favourable conditions for the refugees is one of the most important problems facing the state, which gradually obtain greater volumes, by focusing the attention of the international community to them and demanding to reach the cooperation and the assistance between the states to a new qualitative level. It has been underlined that there is need to work out a new agenda and strategy to review the existing problems.

The Head of the Migration Service of the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Sub-Structures Armen Ghazaryan highlighted the format of the debate of the issue on the parliamentary format, touched upon the refugees’ integration problems. He has noted that there is need of working out integration strategy, also considering topical the item of providing the forcibly deported citizens from Azerbaijan with apartments.

The Representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Anna-Carin Ost has stated that at present there are more than 70mln deported people in the world, and 25mln out of them are refugees, who need assistance. She expressed readiness to support the RA Government for solving the problems.

The RA First Deputy Speaker of Labor and Social Affairs Gemafin Gasparyan has noted that Armenia is a state that has survived after Genocide, and the Armenian knows well what means a refugee. According to him, the Republic of Armenia showed deep concern and sympathy towards the sufferings of the civilians in the world and the destruction of different countries. He mentioned that more than 22.000 refugees were moved from Syria to Armenia during the Syrian conflict. Gemafin Gasparyan also referred to the Motherland deprivation during the Karabakh conflict and the continuous violations of the rights.

In their speeches the speakers talked about the legislative existing regulations, the integration of the newly recognized refugees, their protection in the context of the conflict regulation the Azerbaijani Armenians’ problems, as well as the compensation of the material and moral losses, the accounting of the working years and the pension counting.

The questions addressed to the speakers related to the peculiarities of the refugees’ constitutional-legal status in the RA, the international legal and inner-state guarantees of the protection of the refugees’ rights.