1 / 2

On November 23 the press conference of the head of RA NA in NATO PA was held, where the member of delegation, deputy Mr. Artak Zakaryan also took part.

Mr. Karen Avagyan informed the representatives that the one-year negotiations of RA NA delegation have been effective: the Rose-Roth Seminar of NATO Parliamentary Assembly will be held on March 11-13 in Armenia. NATO member and partner all countries will take part in the Seminar on Regional Developments in the South Caucasus, Challenges, Opportunities, Perspectives and Future Plans. Regional experts, representative of international organizations Peter Semneby, Robert Simmons, Bernard Fassier and others will deliver speeches. They will touch upon the problems of energy security, regional conflicts and cooperation. It was noted that the seminar will be held by NATO PA financing, our country hosts this prestigious event for the second time, the first one was held five years ago.

Head of the Armenian delegation in NATO PA Mr. Karen Avagyan said that in the 55^th NATO PA annual session, which was held in Edinburgh on November 13-17, the Armenian delegation had actively participated in all discussions and works. The delegation comprised of RPA faction deputies Mr. Karen Avagyan and Artak Zakaryan and from Heritage faction Styopa Safaryan. The Azerbaijani delegation this time too has not deprived itself of preserving its own approaches on the Karabakh problem, in response to which the delegates of our parliament and one of the Lithuanian MPs gave speeches.

According to another member of our delegation Mr. Artak Zakaryan, in all five committees interesting and important issue have been discussed, among them he distinguished the theme of settlement NATO-European Union relations and its further development. There were reports on NATO-Georgia, NATO-European Union relations, role of NATO in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. In the report on “open doors” policy of the structure it was noted that the states asking for NATO membership are mainly four: Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. These countries must continue the procedure of the adopted reforms, there are things to be done in respect of strengthening the democratic institutions, protection of fundamental human and citizen’s rights and freedoms. As Mr. Artak Zakaryan said, the concept of the new strategy of NATO has also been in the focus of discussions. The previous strategy of the NATO has already been established in 1999, but conditioned by the environmental and geopolitical changes: a necessity of elaboration of new strategy for the structure has arisen. The elaborated new document will first be submitted to the Presidents of NATO member-countries, and after being enjoyed will be adopted at the end of 2010. The necessity of making certain amendments in the NATO PA statute has also been discussed. Elections of NATO PA leadership has also been held, the order of participation in the works of PA committees of the delegations of member and partner countries has been regulated. Our country has opportunity to take part in the works of all five committees with one member in each committee.

We’ll inform you that the NATO PA Spring session will be held in Latvia.