1 / 3

On April 4, the Head of the NA Armenia-Israel Friendship Group Artak Zakaryan, members of the Group Alexander Arzumanyan, Edmon Marukyan, Karen Bekaryan, Tevan Poghosyan, Hrant Bagratyan and Naira Karapetyan met with the Delegation led by the Head of Israel-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Tali Ploskov.

In the course of the meeting issues concerning the further development of the parliamentary relations of the two countries were discussed. The parliamentarians talked about the historical commonalities connecting the two peoples, the same problems having now, the themes of the defense and security borders of theie own countries.

Welcoming the guests, Artak Zakaryan highlighted the participation of the MPs of Israel in the events of the Armenian Genocide Centennial. Talking about the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and the Nagorno Karabakh problem, the Committee Chairman has noted that Armenia seeks the problems of all types through peaceful and political means. Artak Zakaryan has noted that at night of April 2 the Azerbaijani armed forces attacked the Karabakh positions. It has been underlined that by now Armenia’s borders were fired, however the development of the recent years had been only against Nagorno Karabakh, aiming at bombarding the civilians and defense sub-units of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. According to Mr Zakaryan, Azerbaijan organized military aggression, breaking all agreements and negotiating principles.

The Committee Chairman has noted that Azerbaijan tries to take the Nagorno Karabakh problem through military means. In Artak Zakaryan’s word, Azerbaijan applied a large amount of weapons. “Armenia also obtains weapon and amunition from different countries, however they aim to preserve peace and regional stability,” said Mr Zakaryan. It has been noted that Armenia, in fact, together with Nagorno Karabakh is the only guarantor of stability in the region. According to Artak Zakaryan, the shortest road to reach peace is the dialogue of the Nagorno Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia in the OSCE PA negotiating format.

The guests also underlined the necessity of activating the relations between the Knesset of Israel and the RA National Assembly, as well as expressed readiness to support the cooperation in a number of spheres of mutual importance, as economy, culture and tourism.

Talking about the events going on in the Line of Contact of Karabakh-Azerbaijani conflicting troops, the Head of Israel-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Tali Ploskov strongly condemned Azerbaijan’s military operations against Nagorno Karabakh and called on to establish peace. The MPs of the Knesset have noted that the only solution of the problem is the peace which is a long-lasting process.

The Armenian parliamentarians also highlighted the development of the parliamentary relations, talked about the regional problems, touched upon the important role of the Armenian community in Israel and the Jewish community in Armenia in friendly relations.