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On November 6, in the Black Castle of the City of Gyumri the 32nd sitting of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on Cooperation between the RA National Assembly and the RF Federal Assembly was held.

The Co-Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on the Armenian-Russian Cooperation, the RA NA Deputy Speaker Alen Simonyan has noted that today, the inter-state relations between the two states are at high political level, continuing to be strengthened in all spheres. According to him, the active dialogue is a firm basis for the trade-economic, military-political, cultural and humanitarian cooperation in the framework of bilateral format, as well as international structures. As an important component of bilateral cooperation he evaluated the Armenian-Russian parliamentary cooperation. In this context Alen Simonyan underlined the active work of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on Cooperation, the joint meetings of the relevant Committees of the two countries' parliaments and the visits at different levels. As the NA Deputy Speaker has said, the Committees has already proven its viability and importance as an effective platform of the issues mutual interest for open and effective discussions. He has noted that Armenia and Russia are strategic allies, and they successfully cooperate not only in the IPA CIS and the CSTO PA, but also in the parliamentary different formats. Touching upon the issue of harmonisation of the national legislations in the EEU format being under discussion, the NA Deputy Speaker has stated that the sittings of the Committee allow analyzing the problems and assessing the perspectives of the further work, at the same time disclosing the possibilities of making decisions agreed at parliamentary level. He expressed conviction that the discussions would give new impetus to the further dialogue.

The Co-Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on Cooperation, the Deputy Speaker of the RF Federation Council of the Federal Assembly Yuri Vorobyov highlighted the successful work of the Committee in the EEU framework, underscoring the considerable contribution of Armenia in strengthening of the structure. He noted that Armenia successfully presided over in the EEU bodies in 2019 and made its considerable contribution to that Union. According to Yuri Vorobyov, after signing the Treaty on Eurasian Economic Union good results had been reached. Particularly, in 2018 the EEU GDP increased by 2,5%, including in Armenia – by 5.2%, the goods turnover increased by 18.8%, and the volume of the mutual trade of the member states – by 9.2% reaching 60bln USD.

The items of the agenda at Gyumri sitting were: the harmonisation and approximation of the national legislations in the EEU framework, as well as the the cultural and humanitarian cooperation between the two countries.

During the discussion the Armenian parliamentarians emphasized particularly the problem of allowing the trucks to drive from Russia to Georgia in Upper Lars checkpoint.

The members of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee Cooperation will submit recommendations on the formation of the agenda of the next sitting by the end of this year.

In the framework of the sitting works the members of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee Cooperation between the RA NA and the RF FA have visited N 23 Secondary School of the City of Gyumri, where there are also Russian classes. The Russian MPs donated textbooks to the library of the school, then attended the event dedicated to the Armenian-Russian friendship.