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On May 11, the RA NA Deputy Speaker, the Head of the RA NA Delegation to PACE Hermine Naghdalyan, the members of the Delegation Naira Zohrabyan, Naira Karapetyan and Samvel Farmanyan met with the co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Monitoring Committee Alan Meale and Giuseppe Galati.

Welcoming the co-rapporteurs Hermine Naghdalyan thanked them for effective cooperation and the work done in strengthening democracy in Armenia.

She has informed that the reforms started in Armenia continue. In this context Mrs Naghdalyan highlighted the full implementation of Armenia-CoE 2015-2018 Action Plan, the goal of which is to support the systemized and legislative reforms occurring in the country.

The NA Deputy Speaker in detail presented the Constitutional reforms and the processes following them, touched upon the deadlines of adoption and amendments of the laws conditioned by the Constitutional amendments.

Talking about the anti-corruption policy being implemented in our country the Head of the Delegation has noted that the fight against corruption is one of the prior problems of the policy of the state. It has been noted that by the decision of the RA Government an Anti-Corruption Council and Expertise Group was set up, the strategy of fight against corruption for 2015-2018 and the programme of actions stemming from it were approved.

Mrs Naghdalyan touched upon the large scale war actions unleashed by Azerbaijan against the NK at the beginning of April. She underscored that this was the first large scale offensive after the ceasefire signed in 1994 by the Azerbaijani army with the use of heavy artillery, air force and the weapons banned by the international conventions. During those days Azerbaijan committed mass military crimes, violating provisions of the international humanitarian law and Geneva Convention. The NA Deputy Speaker stressed that Armenia initiated the process of giving internationally adopted legal assessment to the crimes and making accountable Azerbaijan within the framework of international legal norms: the Armenian side submitted facts to the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, claims were presented against Azerbaijan on behalf of the family members of the beheaded and dismembered servicemen to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The co-rapporteur Alan Meale assured that they would continue their contribution to the processes of development of Armenia’s democracy.

In the course of the meeting other issues were also discussed.