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The working visit of Hovik Abrahamyan to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland continues.

On March 15 in London the delegation led by the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament had a number of meetings in the British Parliament. The first meeting was with the Speaker of the House of Commons of the UK Parliament John Bercow. The Baroness Caroline Cox also attended the meeting.

Greeting the delegation led by the NA Speaker Mr Bercow emphasized the visit of the head of the Armenian Parliament to Great Britain and noted that it would be an impetus for the development of relations between the two countries and deepening of inter-parliamentary cooperation. He considered necessary the activation of the bilateral contacts between the parliaments. The Speaker of the House of Commons presented the structure and the staff of the bicameral parliament of the United Kingdom to the Armenian parliamentarians.

NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan thanked for warm reception and confirmed Armenia’s willingness to conduct active and constructive political dialogue with the United Kingdom. As to Hovik Abrahamyan, Armenia emphasizes the multilateral development of relations with the United Kingdom, and in that context, the activation of the political dialogue at high level, to which will promote bilateral visits, and activation of contacts at different formats. In this context the NA Speaker highly assessed RA President’s visit to the United Kingdom in February 2010. To his conviction, as a result of scheduled meetings during his visit he will also succeed to expand the edges of cooperation and pre-indicate new ways in the spheres of mutual interest. With regards to deepening of partnership between legislative bodies an important role was reserved to the Parliamentary Friendship Groups functioning in the parliaments.

Hovik Abrahamyan presented Armenia’s position aimed at the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, as well as the last developments of Armenia-Turkey relations normalization.

At the meeting the parties also emphasized the cooperation in international parliamentary structures, discussed other issues of bilateral interest.

The next meeting was with the Speaker of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Baroness Helen Hayman.

To the conviction of the Speaker of the House of Lords, the visit of the NA Speaker of Armenia is an important precondition with regards to giving new impetus to the British Armenian cooperation. He emphasized the activation of the contacts between the parliaments, in this context highly assessing the big work done by Baroness Caroline Cox. Baroness Helen Hayman expressed hope that Hovik Abrahamyan’s visit would promote the activation and development of bilateral relations.

The Speaker of the National Assembly noted that the goal of his visit was to activate the bilateral contacts and highlighted the development of political and economic relations considering necessary for the development and expansion of the Armenian-British inner-state cooperation the activation of relations between the legislative bodies.

“We highlight the inter-parliamentary cooperation between Armenia and Great Britain with the conviction that the parliamentary diplomacy is one of the important levers for furthering the political dialogue between the countries. We are interested in boosting the inter-parliamentary cooperation enlivening the bilateral visits of the delegations at different levels between the parliaments of Armenia and Great Britain. We highlight the development of the inter-parliamentary cooperation, which is a component of inner-state relations,” Hovik Abrahamyan noted.

In his word, Armenia sees itself in the European family and gives big importance to the development of relations between the EU member countries and parliaments, and the initiative of EU Eastern Partnership opens wide scope of opportunities for the development of cooperation at bilateral and multilateral formats.

Baroness Cox noted that visiting Armenia and Karabakh for 70 times, was convinced that they were building there really a democratic country and a civil society. He considered invaluable Armenia’s role in the world cultural and spiritual heritage and development of civilization. Caroline Cox considered as a brave step and of principle importance the initiative of RA President Serzh Sargsyan launching Armenian-Turkish relations with preconditions.

During the meeting the parties also touched upon regional issues, the settlement of the NK conflict and the Armenian-Turkish relations.

Touching upon the NK issue the NA Speaker noted that Armenia repeatedly announced that it was for the peaceful solution of the conflict within the OSCE Minsk Group format: the problem has only a solution in the context of the international right – the principles of the nations’ self-determination, territorial integrity and non-use of force, and none of those principles should prevail on the other.

Touching upon Armenia-Turkey relations Hovik Abrahamyan noted that Armenia permanently had constructive initiatives, but Turkey was not ready to resume the started process without preconditions, in accordance with the spirit of the protocols signed by high mediation in Zurich. And taking into account the unduly delays and driving forward preconditions in ratifying the protocols within reasonable terms in the Turkish Parliament, Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan called back the protocols from the agenda of the Armenian Parliament, at the same time keeping the signature of the Armenian party put under the protocols, and with that respecting the mediators’ high prestige.

At the end of the meeting the NA Speaker invited the Speaker of the House of Lords to Armenia.

In the British Parliament the NA parliamentary delegation met with the members of the British-Armenian Co-Party Parliamentary Group headed by Caroline Cox.

After the meeting the NA Speaker and the members of the delegation had a walk in the building of the parliament, took part at the sitting of the House of Lords, where the parliament-government question-and-answer session was going on.

On March 15 the delegation led by the NA Speaker will meet with the head of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Robert Walter. After the meeting the Armenian parliamentary delegation will return to Armenia.