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On October 26, the RA NA Vice President, the Head of the RA NA Delegation to PACE Arpine Hovhannisyan received the delegation of the CoE Secretariat General led by the Head of the CoE Directorate of Political Affairs Alexander Gessel.

The goal of the delegation’s visit to Armenia is to discuss the developments held in the fulfillment of the RA assumed obligations after the visit to Armenia in July 2015 of the Rapporteur Group on Democracy of the CoE Committee of Ministers.

The RA NA Vice President highlighted the continuous effective cooperation with the Council of Europe. Arpine Hovhannisyan underlined the valuable role of the CoE in strengthening of democracy and rule of law, protection of human rights in our country and the reform implementation process in numerous spheres.

The RA NA Vice President presented in detail the procedure of the necessary legal acts elaboration and their debates in the RA National Assembly for the full implementation of the RA Constitution. Arpine Hovhannisyan noted that several constitutional laws had already been passed. Now, the Judicial Code and the bill on Constitutional Court are under the phase of debate, on which the positive opinion of the Venice Commission has been received. She has especially highlighted the legislative regulations in fighting corruption, by which creation of functioning system of protection of anti-corruption new body and whistleblowers is designed.

The process of the adoption of the Electoral Code was also touched upon. In this context Arpine Hovhannisyan underlined that it was adopted as a result of mutual agreement of power, opposition and civil society.

The RA NA Vice President also referred to the NK conflict settlement, noting that unlike Azerbaijan, Armenia does its best for the peaceful settlement of the problem. She has noted that the Azerbaijani side, despite the reached agreements, regularly violates the ceasefire and has added that that country does its utmost for failing the negotiations in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and moving the NK problem to other platform, which is unacceptable.

The Head of the CoE Directorate of Political Affairs Alexander Gessel positively assessed the procedure of the reforms being implemented in Armenia during recent years and the efficiency of bilateral cooperation. Talking about the NK conflict, Mr Gessel stated that the CoE is for the peaceful settlement of the problem within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.