YEREVAN. – President of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, Galust Sahakyan, on Tuesday received a delegation led by the Minister of Defense of Georgia, Tinatin “Tina” Khidasheli.

The NA informed Armenian News-NEWS.am that the parliament speaker expressed the hope that such mutual visits will greatly promote the further deepening and strengthening of Armenian-Georgian friendship relations.

Sahakyan noted that the Armenian-Georgian parliamentary ties had rather been enlivened during the last years. In his words, the parliaments have big potential in the formation of domestic and foreign policy, and they can intervene in and contribute to the solution of the problematic issues of the two countries.

The NA Speaker stated that though the relations of the two countries’ MPs are close, unfortunately, the cooperation on international platforms still is unsuccessful.

Galust Sahakyan highly assessed the cooperation of Armenia and Georgia in the military sphere and noted that the agreements of Georgia with Turkey and Azerbaijan in the military-industrial sphere will not impede the implementation of the Armenian-Georgian joint program in that domain.

The Armenian parliament chairman also touched upon the balanced position of Georgia regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Sahakyan noted that having strategic cooperation with Russia, Armenia tries to have balanced position on the issue of South Ossetia. Galust Sahakyan stressed the official and non-official meetings with Georgia, and noted that the Armenian NA will promote the implementation of the envisaged programs.

Khidasheli, for her part, conveyed the NA Speaker the greetings by his Georgian colleague. Also, she congratulated Armenia in relation to the conducting of the referendum on constitutional amendments adding that Georgia has also passed the same difficult path.

At the end of the meeting, the interlocutors talked about the deepening of political dialogue and the development of economic cooperation between the two countries, and several other matters of bilateral interest.