We have opened a new page in our history. Armenia has chosen the path of democratic development, as it stands at the origins of the value system of European civilization and steadfastly continues to strengthen democracy and, with its own forces, the policy of protecting and strengthening its country. This was stated by the speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, Alen Simonyan, in his opening remarks at the 4th Meeting of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Partnership Committee taking place today in Yerevan.

Simonyan added as follows, in part: “We [i.e. Armenia] realize that this is a very difficult and dangerous path. The rapidly changing reality of the situation in the world forces us to be open-minded and make the right decisions—no matter how difficult they may be.

Being at the crossroads of civilizations, we attach great importance to normal relations with neighboring states, and strive to establish relations in the region with open borders and based on partnership.

The Armenian government has come up with the Crossroads of Peace project, which concerns making our region’s transportation and communication routes more efficient—based on the principles of sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and reciprocity of countries. We are trying to pursue a balanced policy with the countries and power centers of the region, the basis of which is the differentiation of security, economy, energy, and other domains.

We are expanding cooperation also with the EU member states in various domains. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the significant financial support being provided [to Armenia] by the EU, which is aimed at the reforms taking place in Armenia and a number of landmark initiatives.

All this is happening within the framework of the Armenia-European cooperation that is getting closer and setting a new agenda. A number of important events that have taken place in the past few months are a vivid proof of this. The dialogue on visa liberalization was launched, Armenia was included in the European Peace Facility program, the EU extended the timeframe of the presence of its civilian [monitoring] mission at the borders of Armenia for another two years, which clearly and significantly reduced the number of incidents at the border [with Azerbaijan] and prevented the risk of possible escalation.

And finally, a few days ago, on February 13, the RA [i.e. the Republic of Armenia] National Assembly passed in the first reading the law on the launch of the process of accession of the Republic of Armenia to the European Union, which is a real manifestation of the determination of our citizens who aspire to become part of the European community.”