Thursday, 6 September 2007
RA Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan received the delegation led by French Socialist Party First Secretary Francois Holland.
Welcoming the visit of such a representative delegation from the French Socialist Party to Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan noted that beyond promoting inter-party ties, this visit was supposed to strengthen the Armenian-French relationship as a whole and develop bilateral cooperation.
During the meeting, either side stated with satisfaction the upward dynamics of bilateral relationship of recent years, as evidenced by the multitude and diversity of events held under Armenia
's Year in France and the celebrations of the Year of France in Armenia, reciprocated presidential visits etc.At the request of his guest, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan provided an outline of today
's economic and political situation in Armenia, development prospects, relations with neighboring countries and, in this context, presented Armenia's approaches regarding the settlement of the existing problems, as well as the possibilities for the furtherance and strengthening of bilateral ties in the economic, political, educational, cultural and a number of other fields. Speaking of regional challenges, the head of the Armenian government touched upon the settlement of the Karabakh conflict and presented Armenia's approaches as stated on several occasions prior to this meeting. The Prime Minister expressed hope that the conflict would be given a negotiated resolution through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group, and went on to stress that the given conflict had no military solution. He said that as a Group co-chair, France had done considerable amount of work, and he would be glad that the developing cooperation between political forces would contribute to the settlement of the problems available in the region.During the meeting, Francois Holland referred to the issue of the Armenian Genocide recognition and noted that the bill passed in the French Parliament to that effect was moved by his Socialist Party. According to Mr. Holland, at this point the Socialist Party was drafting another bill on the penalization of Genocide denial.
Thanking the Guest and his Socialist party for their Armenia-friendly stance and efforts for the development of the Armenian-French relationship, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan noted that it was quite natural for any Armenian to hold in deepest respect those nations, organizations and individuals who not only had contributed to the restoration of the historical truth through their efforts towards genocide recognition and condemnation, but also helped prevent the recurrence of further such crimes against humanity.
At the end of the meeting, the Prime Minister wished every success to the French Socialist Party and expressed hope that this notorious political party of France would henceforth promote the strengthening of relationship between our two countries.
