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At the Plenary Session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, the Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, the Head of the Armenian delegation Armen Ashotyan delivered a speech, where he touched upon the recent inner-political developments in Armenia, the importance of the ratification of the RA-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Agreement, the peaceful settlement process of Nagorno Karabakh conflict and other agenda items.

Armen Ashotyan thanked the delegation of the European Parliament for visiting Yerevan and the assessments made on the inner-political developments occurred in Armenia. In this context, touching upon the process of non-violent transferring of the power, the Head of the delegation has noted that what happened documents about the high level of development of the political culture existing in Armenia. The fact that all the parties involved in the process made efforts for avoiding clashes was also emphasized.

Armen Ashotyan has underlined that the new Government of Armenia is a result of the election held by the legitimate parliament, which is a very important constitutional basis in terms of the further democratic development of Armenia.

With regards to the cooperation with the new government, Armen Ashotyan highlighted the eradication of the intolerance, the boosting of political pluralism, the guaranteeing of the freedom of press, the respect towards the right to free expression and the exclusion of judicial persecutions with political motivations.

The Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations also referred to the process of the amendments to the Electoral Code. In this context he emphasized the implementation of the electoral reforms by political consent, public involvement and exclusively based on the international principles, particularly the recommendations of the Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR, underscoring the definition of the logical terms for holding the elections.

Regarding the RA-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, Armen Ashotyan highlighted the quick ratification of the Agreement in the parliaments of the EU member states until the 2019 elections of the European Parliament.

In the process of boosting of the relations with the European Union Armen Ashotyan underlined the wider-meaning use of the principle ‘more for more,’ stressing the support and cooperation in the political and other spheres based on the ideological values.

In his word Armen Ashotyan also referred to the importance of peace and stability in the South Caucasus and noted that admissible principle should be for everybody the fact that no conflict could be solved through military means in the region. It was noted that the solution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict should be exclusively based on the peoples’ self-determination, territorial integrity and the principles of exclusion of the force or threat of force.

At the end of his speech the Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations expressed hope that the Eastern Partnership Region would ever be a cradle of peace and cooperation.