1 / 4

On March 14, the RA NA Vice President Eduard Sharmazanov received the Delegation of the Belgian and Flemish Parliamentarians, who after the visit to Armenia will be in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

Welcoming the guests, the NA Vice President Eduard Sharmazanov highly assessed the role of the Armenian-Belgian and the Armenian-Flemish parliamentarians in the development of the bilateral relations. He expressed confidence that this visit will also be an impetus to more develop and deepen the friendly relations.

The NA Vice President Eduard Sharmazanov thanked the Vice President of the Flemish Parliament (Senate) Karl Vanlouwe for taking part in the events of the Armenian Genocide Centennial and the Global Forum “Against the Crime of Genocide” and for the speech, as well as for the adoption of the Resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide by the Flemish Parliament and the Belgian Parliament for reaffirming the position on the Genocide condemnation. Highlighting the denial of the double standards in condemnation of genocides and the international condemnation of genocides, the NA Vice President Eduard Sharmazanov has noted that as the past one-hundred year history has shown, the non-condemned crimes give brith to new crimes. In his word, the denial policy of Turkey is a threat not only for the region, but also for the whole mankind, which testifies to the events occurring in the Near East today.

Eduard Sharmazanov thanked the members of the Delegation for readiness to visit the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and considered it a good occasion to see the developing democracy with their own eyes. He has reaffirmed that Armenia sees the settlement of the NK conflict exclusively through peaceful means based on three international principles: the peoples’ right to self-determination, territorial integrity and the non-use of the force or the force threat, and Azerbaijan always refuses two out of them and misinterpreting the problem, tries to pass different resolutions at different international structures.

The Vice President of the Flemish Parliament (Senate) Karl Vanlouwe in the name of the Delegation thanked his colleague for the warm reception and informed him that the visit to Nagorno Karabakh has a distinct goal: a programme is envisaged to be implemented, according to him, a number of Flemish and Karabakh schools will cooperate and carry out a series of works. As Karl Vanlouwe has noted, that will be a small step of Flanders to lift the blockade of Karabakh.

Touching upon the Karabakh conflict problem, the Vice President of the Flemish Parliament, on behalf of him and his colleagues, highlighted the protection of human rights, and in this context the Karabakh people’s right to self-determination.

In the course of the meeting the interlocutors touched upon other issues of bilateral interest, and highlighted the role of Diaspora Armenians in the development of bilateral relations.