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The RA NA President Alen Simonyan met with the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović within the framework of the working visit to Strasbourg.

“You are a reliable counterpart, with whom warm cooperation had been established already before you being elected as CoE Commissioner for Human Rights. The authorities highly appreciate your activities directed to the protection of human rights in the CoE member countries,” Alen Simonyan underlined.

The sides have agreed on the importance of the cooperation programme of the Council Europe, which is of great importance also with regards to the implementation of a number of strategic programmes of the Government of Armenia. In this context the strategy of the RA judicial and legal reforms 2019-2023, the RA anti-corruption strategy and the Action Plan 2019-2023, the RA national strategy of protection of human rights and the Action Plan 2020-2022, the strategy and the Action Plan 2019-2023 of the RA Penitentiary and Probation sphere were particularly noted.

Touching upon the post-war situation in Artsakh, the RA NA President stressed the immediate repatriation of Armenian prisoners of war and other held persons. A reference was made to the reports alarming the international specialized structures. The report of the Human Rights Watch published recently, where facts are mentioned about the inhuman conditions of holding Armenian prisoners of war in Azerbaijani prisons and the gross violations of those people’s fundamental rights, was discussed.

Alen Simonyan expressed regret over the cancelation of Dunja Mijatović’s designed visit to Armenia and Artsakh in January 2021.

He greatly highlighted her position that the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights should have an access to the whole territory including the CoE member states, the so called ‘grey zones’ of the conflict. He noticed that Artsakh is a geographical territory of the Council of Europe, where Europeans live, and the people of Artsakh have the same rights.

The sides underscored the importance of the CoE role in the solution of the humanitarian devastating consequences of the war against Artsakh.