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On October 25, within the framework of the Conference of Presidents of Parliament of the Member States of the Council of Europe the President of the RA National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan met with the President of the Senate of France Gérard Larcher.

Ararat Mirzoyan expressed satisfaction with the current level of the Armenian-French relations and highlighted the continuity of the regular dialogue of high level. He has stressed that the contacts between the two parliaments are considered to be its most important component, especially in the international parliamentary organizations.

The sides also highly assessed the close cooperation of the Armenian-French Friendship Groups.

Ararat Mirzoyan particularly highly evaluated the activity of the Friendship Framework of the members of the Senate of France with Artsakh, including the visits of its members and the parliamentary delegations in general.

Touching upon the cooperation in the EU framework Ararat Mirzoyan has noted that the National Assembly urges all its international colleagues to end the process of ratification of the RA-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Agreement within possible short term, after which it will be possible to launch the dialogue over the visa liberalisation with the European Union. He has particularly stressed that after the Velvet revolution and in parallel with the development of democracy there are great expectations in the Armenian society, and Armenia expects the support of friendly France.

At the request of the President of the Senate of France Ararat Mirzoyan touched upon the current phase of the peaceful settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, underlining that all rights of Nagorno Karabakh population should be respected, irrespective of the fact Artsakh is a recognized state or not.

The existing tendency in Europe to facilitate the visit of the representatives of the international structures and the Council of Europe to the “grey zones” was emphasized.

Reaffirming the Armenian-French special relations the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher has noted that the ratification of the RA-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Agreement is on the agenda of the Senate, and the Senate will turn to it in the near future. Highly assessing the commitment of Armenia to exclusively peaceful solution of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Gérard Larcher reaffirmed that France as an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair country, would continue making efforts for the peaceful and long-lasting settlement of the problem.