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On June 20-22, the delegation led by the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations Sargis Khandanyan will be on a working visit in Bratislava by invitation of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic Marián Kéry. The Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport, the member of Armenia-Slovakia Friendship Group Taguhi Ghazaryan and the member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations Eduard Aghajanyan are in the delegation.

During the visit the parliamentarians met with the Deputy Speaker of the National Council of Slovakia Juraj Blanár, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic Marián Kéry, the members of the Committee and the members of Slovakia-Armenia Friendship Group.

The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to Slovakia Armen Papikyan and the Honorary Consul Bagrat Hakobyan also took part in the meetings.

During the meetings the positive dynamics of the development of the inter-parliamentary relations between Armenia and Slovakia was recorded satisfactorily. Sargis Khandanyan underscored that Slovakia is one of the important partners of Armenia in Europe, and Armenia is deeply concerned about expanding the cooperation with Slovakia in all spheres of mutual interest, in the bilateral format, as well as within the framework of relations with the European Union. The Slovak colleagues highlighted the activeness of the inter-parliamentary contacts and the visit of the RA NA delegation to Slovakia. They also emphasized the issue of the visa liberalization with the European Union and expressed readiness to support Armenia.

The Armenian parliamentarians at their colleagues’ request presented in detail the situation created as a consequence of blocking the Lachin Corridor, considering unacceptable the deployment of the checkpoint in the Corridor by Azerbaijan. In the meetings reference was made to the security challenges of the region, the aggressive policy pursued towards Armenia by Azerbaijan, the invasion of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia by the latter. The members of the RA NA delegation attached importance to the role of Slovakia in the deployment of the EU Civilian Observation Mission on the border of Armenia.

Sargis Khandanyan highly valued the adoption of the Resolution on recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide by the National Council of Slovakia in 2004 and thanked their Slovak colleagues for adopting two resolutions on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in 2020 and in 2021.