YEREVAN. - Speaker of the Republic of Armenia National Assembly (RA NA), Ararat Mirzoyan, on Thursday received the delegation led by the President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili who is in Armenia on an official visit. The meeting was held in an extended format.

Mirzoyan expressed the confidence that this visit will be new impetus in the further deepening and strengthening of the Armenian-Georgian friendly relations, NA informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. The speaker of the NA highlighted the brotherly peoples’ traditional and special ties based on the shared history, cultural and spiritual values. The head of the parliament also distinguished the intensification of ties between the parliaments of Armenia and Georgia, noting that a parliamentary friendship group will be formed in the near future.

Speaking about the importance of cooperation at interparliamentary platforms, Ararat Mirzoyan noted that the delegations always support each other in the issues admissible for both sides.

The NA president touched also upon the regional security. With regards to the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict, he stressed that the Armenian authorities favor a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the conflict—and in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, adding that Georgia, as an OSCE participant state, has joined the matter’s resolution within the Minsk Group format.

“Thus, from now on we shall make efforts to have as guidelines the balanced and neutral formulations in all statements on Nagorno-Karabakh,” Mirzoyan highlighted. In this context he expressed a concern about the joint statement on  October 29, 2018 by the Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and in which solely one principle of the conflict was noted. According to the NA Speaker, some wordings voiced by the president of Georgia during her visit to Baku recently also caused concern among the Armenian society. In this respect, the head of the Armenian parliament considered unacceptable the generalized approaches for dissimilar conflicts.

The RA NA speaker also emphasized the further intensification of Armenia-Georgia cooperation in several domains and the implementation of joint programs, referred to the Georgian Armenian community’s activities underscoring their significant contribution to the economic, political, cultural life of Georgia, and said they can serve as a reliable bridge in further strengthening of relations between the two countries.

The president of Georgia, for her part, positively assessed the role of parliamentary diplomacy and considered indispensable the active cooperation and mutual visits between the legislatures of the two countries.

“It is important that our stable relations continue developing, irrespective of the change of political forces,” Zourabichvili said. “We, as neighboring countries, should have close relations; those relations should further deepen and expand.”

Touching upon the concerns by NA Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan, Salome Zourabichvili presented her position, also highlighting the settlement of regional conflicts solely through pacific means and in accordance with the norms of international law. According to her, regional conflicts impede joint progress.

Ararat Mirzoyan, in turn, noted that he is ready to gladly receive his Georgian colleague, chairperson Irakli Kobakhidze of the Parliament of Georgia, in the near future.

And at the end of their meeting, the president of Georgia made a note in the Book of Honourable Guests of the RA National Assembly.