Armenia’s NA speaker, Georgia’s president exchange pretensions over number of foreign political issues

During the meeting in Yerevan NA speaker Ararat Mirzoyan and Georgia’s president Salome Zourabichvili exchanged pretensions regarding a number of foreign political issues.

NA’s press service reported that during the meeting, the interlocutors referred to a number of regional security issues. With regards to Nagorno Karabakh problem the NA speaker underlined that the authorities of Armenia are for the peaceful negotiation settlement of the problem: in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, adding that Georgia as OSCE participant state, has joined the settlement of the problem in the Minsk Group format.

“Thus, from now on we should make efforts in order to have as guidelines the balanced and neutral formulations in all statements on Nagorno Karabakh,” Ararat Mirzoyan underlined. In this context he expressed concern about the joint statement of 29 October 2018 of the Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, where the only one principle of the conflict was mentioned. According to the NA speaker, some wordings voiced by the President of Georgia during the visit to Baku recently also caused concern in the Armenian society. In this respect the head of the parliament considered unacceptable the generalized approaches for different conflicts.

Georgia’s president’s press service in its turn reported that Salome Zourabichvili stated at the meeting that cooperation in solving the conflicts and is very important, as these conflicts impede joint advancement the most.

“As you are aware, Georgia’s two parts are occupied. Talking about my country’s interests, recognition of Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity not only verbally, but also factually is our one and only key interest. It is very unfortunate when delegations from Nagorno-Karabakh visit Abkhazia and South Ossetia and discuss these two conflicts as of the same type. This is very sad and painful for us,” Georgia's president said, adding that the only way to solve these conflicts is through more active political involvement of our partners.

"I think we should work together and, based on international norms, move to a new stage of solving these conflicts. Otherwise, everything we are discussing – economic progress, stability, enhanced cooperation, and strengthening of the transportation and logistics ties with the EU and other countries are only verbal statements," Zourabichvili stated.