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On March 9, the RA NA Speaker Galust Sahakyan received Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic Nikolaos Kotzias.

Welcoming the Minister in the National Assembly, Galust Sahakyan highlighted the traditional friendly relations between Armenia and Greece, the historical common past and the commonalities of spiritual and cultural values.

Mentioning the fact of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Greece in 1996, the NA Speaker expressed his gratitude for the adoption of the bill defining criminal responsibility for the denial of genocides in September 2014.

Galust Sahakyan has recorded that today the Armenian-Greek relations are at high level: we have full bilateral agenda: from political dialogue to mutually beneficial cooperation in different spheres.

The NA Speaker has documented that the Armenian-Greek inter-parliamentary relations develop efficiently, and it is expected that the cooperation, particularly, the mutual visits between the parliaments will continue.

In this context the Head of the parliament especially highlighted the cooperation between Armenia and Greece in the format of parliamentary assemblies of different international and regional organizations and the positions of principle of the parliaments of two friendly countries in the issues sensible for each other.

The Speaker of the National Assembly also touched upon the boosting and expansion of economic cooperation between the two countries, underlining the perspective of wide opportunities of development in the context of Armenia-EU comprehensive cooperation. He has noted the deepening of cooperation with the European Union is one of the most important directions of the RA foreign policy.

Touching upon the Nagorno Karabakh (NK) conflict, Galust Sahakyan has noted that Armenia especially emphasizes the balanced position of Greece in the NK problem peaceful settlement and the support to the peaceful settlement of the problem under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group. In the NA Speaker’s word, both Armenia and Artsakh are by principle against the use of force: they emphasize the settlement of the problem through peaceful negotiations.

Thanking the NA Speaker for the reception and conveying the greetings of Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, Nikolaos Kotzias also attached importance to civilizational and historical commonalities of Greece and Armenia. He touched upon with pain his impressions received from the Armenian Genocide Museum and noted that in case of not rightly understanding the history and not learning lessons, it will be repeated.

Highlighting the political dialogue and strategic cooperation existing between Greece and Armenia, Mr Kotzias also referred to the economic cooperation, relating to which a lot will be done. Regarding Armenia-EU cooperation, in this context Nikolaos Kotzias underlined the issue of visa liberalisation. Emphasizing his visit to Armenia, he has noted that the main goal of this visit is the settlement of strategic disproportions between Greece and Armenia, which he is going to discuss with the RA President, the Prime Minister and the members of the government, and present his views and recommendations.

In his word, Mr Kotzias has underlined the great role of cultural diplomacy and noted that there is need of support of parliaments in the implementation of numerous programmes.