YEREVAN.- Six offices of the Ombudsman will be open in Armenia’s regions.

OSCE and the European Union signed an implementation agreement which envisages establishing six regional offices of the latter, maintaining the operation of a hotline for registration of alleged human rights violations and establishing rapid reaction groups to ensure prompt mobile response to alleged violations during the elections and pre-election campaign.

The program will be implemented during 19 months and will embrace parliamentary and presidential elections.

Head of the OSCE Yerevan office gave appraisal of the program stressing its importance from the viewpoint of strengthening cooperation with the Ombudsman’s office and civil society.

In his turn Onno Simons, Acting Head of EU delegation to Armenia, said the Union will follow elections in Armenia in 2012 and 2013. According to him, free and fair elections are an important condition for the development of Armenia-EU relations.

Armenian Ombudsman Karen Andreasyan said about 100 lawyers will be involved in the program, six cars and technical equipment of the new regional offices will be provided.