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On November 2 the Head of the Armenia-Japan Friendship Group Samvel Farmanyan, the members of the Group Artsvik Minasyan, Manvel Grigoryan, Sedrak Saroyan and Levon Zurabyan met with the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Japan to the Republic of Armenia Tikahito Harada.

Welcoming the Ambassador’s visit to the parliament, the Head of the Armenia-Japan Friendship Group Samvel Farmanyan noted that the official visit of the RA President Serzh Sargsyan to Japan several months ago had raised to a new level the Armenian-Japanese relationship. The members of the Armenia-Japan Friendship Group expressed hope that the Armenian-Japanese inter-parliamentary relations would more deepen and develop, as all favourable conditions were available for that. Taking the advantage the Head of the Armenia-Japan Friendship Group Samvel Farmanyan invited the Japanese parliamentary colleagues to Armenia, which Mr Tikahito Harada gladly accepted.

Underlining the Armenian-Japanese relations Samvel Farmanyan thanked the Japanese Government for the humanitarian aid shown to Armenia after the 1988 disastrous earthquake and noticed that he deemed important the opening of the Embassy of Japan in Armenia for more rapprochement of the relations. In response to that, Mr Tikahito Harada expressed readiness to convey to the Government the Armenian MPs’ wish, noting that however, at this moment the opening of new embassies was connected with some financial difficulties.

In his turn, the Ambassador of Japan thanked the Armenian Government for good attitude and support shown after disaster earthquake and tsunami happened to Japan.

In the course of the meeting the interlocutors touched upon a number of regional problems. The Head of the Armenia-Japan Friendship Group Samvel Farmanyan highly assessed the Japan’s balanced stance in the NK conflict settlement and noticed that from this view the availability of the Japanese Embassy would be valuable too.

Touching upon the NKR conflict issue the Armenia-Japan Friendship Group Samvel Farmanyan has underlined that Japan supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and the conflict settlement sees exclusively though peace and in accordance with international stanmdards.

At the meeting the sides touched upon the fact of extradition to Baku by the Hungarian authorities the Azerbaijani Safarov, who axed the Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan. The Ambassador of Japan expressed hope that Armenia would restore its diplomatic relations with Hungary.