Thursday, 6 April 2006
Today Republic of Armenia Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan has received newly appointed EU Special Representative Peter Szemneby.
Having congratulated Mr. Szemneby on his new appointment, the Prime Minister expressed hope that the close ties of effective cooperation between Armenia and the European Union maintained in the time of former Special Representative Heikki Talvitie would be built on during Mr. Szemneby's term in office. In this context, the Prime Minister wished that this visit of Mr. Szemneby had been effective far from bearing solely a fact-finding character. Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan highly valued the intentions and initiatives of the EU with regard to Southern Caucasus. He stated that in spite of the fact that the representatives of EU and the Minsk group of OSCE acted in different formats as to the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, all of their efforts came to the same thing after all consisting in soonest possible peaceful settlement of the conflict. Mr. Margaryan said that Armenia was concerned with Azerbaijan's aggressive statements, which were supported with repeated breaches of cease-fire on the Armenian-Azerbaijani borderline recently. During conversation, the head of RA government similarly noted that the Armenian side would like to see in Yerevan an independent delegation from the EU, especially considering the significant growth of amount of work in connection with the implementation of the Program of Action under the European Neighborhood Policy.
Satisfied at the successful and effective development of the Armenian program of action, the head of the Armenian government said to be hopeful that the Program of Action would be approved upon successful completion of the second stage of negotiations scheduled for May, 2006.
Noting that this was his first visit to Armenia as EU Special Representative and that he was going to pay recurrent visits to Armenia in future, Mr. Szemneby said to be pleased that he came to be appointed to this office at a time when the relations of the European Union with the countries of Southern Caucasus had taken a new quality. He stressed that the EU was interested in quick settlement of all conflicts in South Caucasus and the shift of mandate was as well caused by this very fact. Mr. Szemneby further said that soon he would be back to Armenia again in the framework of a visit of co-chairmen of the Minsk group of OSCE. Having mentioned that throughout his new mission he would be actively involved in the processes of conflict settlement, as well as realization of reforms towards the strengthening of rule of law and judicial system, the Special Representative of EU asked RA Prime Minister to represent his views on the work done in these areas. Mr. Margaryan said that following the recent referendum on Constitutional amendments in our country, the government had undertaken concrete steps in the foregoing directions in line with the requirements of the amended Constitution, inclusive of the approval in the 2006 program of action of the tasks assigned to the ministries and departments concerned, with precise indication of terms for completion. Noting that from the moment of declaration of independence, Armenia had embraced the path of euro-integration, Mr. Margaryan said that active work was being done in terms of harmonizing the legislation of our country with that of the European Union.
During the meeting, the Interlocutors have also referred to the question of holding future elections in Armenia in accordance with generally accepted international standards, the relationships and cooperation between Armenia and the Russian Federation, as well as Armenia's policies in the field of energy and other issues of topical interest.
