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On October 17, at the press conference held in the RA National Assembly, the Head of the RA NA Delegation to NATO Parliamentary Assembly Koryun Nahapetyan and the member of the Delegation Edmon Marukyan presented details on the works of the Annual Session of NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA). The Armenian delegates Koryun Nahapetyan, Edmon Marukyan and Suren Manukyan took part in the Annual Session.

Koryun Nahapetyan assessed effective the Armenian delegates’ work, noting that they took part in the discussions with all formats. Besides the plenary session the Delegation attended the works of the Political Committee, Defence and Security Committee, Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security, Economics and Security Committee, Science and Technology Committee and expressed their positions and viewpoints on all issues, resolutions and reports. Mr Nahapetyan informed that, as always, also this time the delegation of Azerbaijan tried to carry out anti-Armenian campaign, proposing anti-Armenian different formulations.

By Koryun Nahapetyan’s assessment, a rather interesting debate was held relating to the stability and security problems in the Black Sea Region, on which the key speaker Ulla Schmidt expressed her anxiety and concerns. The Azerbaijani delegation proposed some wordings for including them in the draft resolution, which were refused later by the key speaker, and the Armenian delegation presented its objections. The Head of the delegation stated that the report and the draft resolution were related to the Black Sea in the narrow sense, i.e. only to the states, which have access to the sea. With its proposals Azerbaijan tried to expand that format and fully included in it the Black Sea Region, also including Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan made an attempt with that to take the solution of the regional conflicts by the principle of the territorial integrity. The key speaker denied the recommendations made by Azerbaijan; hence no provision concerning the Armenian side was included in the mentioned resolution.

During the Annual Session the problem of equal delivery of the humanitarian aid in Syria, the Independence Referendum of Kurdistan, the events taking place in Syria and Iraq was also discussed. The participants touched upon the issue of making changes in Ukraine and in Georgia. By the assessment of the NATO Secretary General, irrespective of the issue of these countries joining the NATO, the implementation of the most serious changes stems from the interests of those countries.

A considerable part of the issues under debate in the NATO PA related to NATO-Russia relations. Koryun Nahapetyan has noted that according to NATO Secretary General, though there is no considerable progress in NATO-Russia relationship, nevertheless, positive move is noticeable. In the debate the NATO Secretary General referred to the last meeting of NATO-Russia Council, during which different agenda items were discussed. As a result of debate, it has become clear that NATO is ready to continue the dialogue with Russia.

The members of the delegation has informed that during the debate of NATO-Russia relations Azerbaijan has again touched upon the issue of the NK conflict settlement and has tried to show that Russia has a negative role in this region providing weapons to Armenia with privileged loan conditions. Responding to this the Armenian side has presented our security system and has noted that on the contrary, Azerbaijan gets assault armament from Russia and other countries.

The members of the delegation also answered the journalists’ questions.