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March 28
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President of Greece Procopios Pavlopolos together with spouse Vlassia Pavlopoulou will arrive in Armenia on an official visit on November 5. Ahead of his visit, the President made an exclusive statement to Armenpress.

“Greek-Armenian relations, which have reached an exceptional level, go back a long way into the past and are founded on solid friendship, mutual understanding as well as creative and productive cooperation. Our relations have indeed reached such a degree of harmony that they extend beyond bilateral relations and into the wider field of international cooperation, because our respective views on a number of important international issues coincide substantially, especially in matters pertaining to the defense and consolidation of Peace, the Fundamental Rights of Man and Social Justice.

The main political and institutional buttress of our efforts in this direction is the comprehensive application of international law. The Trilateral Cooperation between Greece, Cyprus and Armenia reinforces the aforementioned parameters of our collaboration. Even though issues pertaining to the Diasporas of each country provided the starting point of this cooperation, it gathered, in the meantime, a much broader momentum and led to a manifold cooperation between the three countries. However, the foundations of our utterly sincere and close cooperation between Greece and Armenia lie in the martyr-like experiences of our Nations.

Even though we nurture no feelings of vengefulness against the perpetrators, we cannot afford to forget these experiences, not even for a moment. It is the memory and remembrance of these experiences that compels us to champion the Humanitarian Principle of “Never again”. These martyr-like experiences are immersed in the blood of the tragic victims of two barbarous Genocides: the Armenian Genocide, on the one hand, and the Genocide of the Greeks of Pontus, on the other.

It is common knowledge that, in this regard, Greece led the way by recognizing the Armenian Genocide in 1996 and criminalizing its denial in 2014. We, Greeks, welcome with delight the impressive widening of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the recent Resolution of the United States Congress being the most preeminent example. On the occasion of my present visit to Armenia, it is my duty to proclaim that Greece strongly and staunchly advocates Peace, Prosperity and the Fundamental Rights of Man for every country and not just its allies and neighbours.

The sole guiding principle of our advocacy of these principles is the faithful and comprehensive application of International and European Law.

Guided by this policy Greece: Firstly, it recognizes the need for and supports a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue that would be based exclusively on international law. Thus, it supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group to find a peaceful solution. And, secondly, it emphatically favours the ever-closer rapprochement between the European Union and Armenia. The exceptionally high priority we have given to initiating the necessary procedures for the validation of the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement attests to the importance we attach to Greek-Armenian relations”.

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