Armenian parliament’s speaker Ararat Mirzoyan met Wednesday with the Greek President Prokopios Pavlopoulos, who arrived in Armenia on an official visit, parliament’s press service reported.

Welcoming the guest the Armenian parliament’s speaker noted that the relations between Armenia and Greece are at high level, and besides the relations between the states, the Armenian and Greek peoples have great affection and brotherly feelings towards each other, which come from old centuries. 

Ararat Mirzoyan added that the Hellenic Parliament recognized the Armenian Genocide already in 1996, and in 2015 it passed a law and criminalized the denial of genocide, and the Armenian Parliament recognized the genocide of Pontic Greeks and Assyrians. Besides the cultural, economic and political relations, Ararat Mirzoyan highlighted the cooperation between the two states’ parliaments and noted the necessity of more intensifying the inter-parliamentary contacts. 

According to him, during his visit in Cyprus he had a conversation with the President of the Cypriot Parliament about Armenia-Greece-Cyprus trilateral parliamentary possible format and also talked about that theme with the President of the Hellenic Parliament a few weeks ago during the meeting held in Strasbourg.

Very few countries are left that have not ratified yet the Armenian-EU deal and one of those countries is, unfortunately, Armenia’s friend Greece, said the speaker adding that Armenia expects the support of Greece over the dialogue on visa liberalisation.

Thanking for the reception, the President of Greece has assured that in the near future his country will ratify Armenia-EU deal, after which they expect that the relations between Armenia and Greece, as well as between Armenia and the EU other member countries will more deepen. 

“We should make efforts and expand our relations,” Prokopios Pavlopoulos said, noting that the genocides of Armenians and Greeks are the tragic pages which also unite the two countries.