From December 14 to 15, the Union of Informed Citizens hosted a two-day seminar under the title “Foreign Policy and Coverage: Settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”. The statement on the seminar was posted on the organization’s Facebook page.

Summing up the results of the event, founder of the Union of Informed Citizens NGO, program coordinator, member of the Public Council Daniel Ioannisyan wrote the following on his Facebook page:

“We hosted a closed meeting devoted to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for journalists, who had an open and sincere discussion with Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan.

The journalists learned many details about the change of logic of Armenia’s foreign policy, the logic of making decisions on national security and subtle details of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

I obviously can’t say what we discussed, but I can surely insist that there is no big lie that “these authorities want to give lands in Artsakh” and cynicism bigger than the circulation of the statements by representatives of the Republican Party of Armenia.

P.S.: This was the ninth discussion that we had organized (in the past five years).”

Public circles and circles of media outlets gave mutually exclusive evaluations of the formulation “Closed discussion on the Artsakh conflict” and the participation of the foreign minister in the event and the secrecy of non-disclosure of the discussion. There were questions on the principle under which participants were selected.

168.am newspaper asked Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anna Naghdalyan, taking into consideration the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was a participant of the event, and the topic of the discussion was extremely sensitive.

In response to questions on the condition to not disclose details on the logic of Armenia’s foreign policy and subtle details of the Artsakh conflict and whether the discussion was closed or confidential, Naghdalyan said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been holding closed discussions devoted to various topics for decades under the rules of Chatham House during which the foreign minister answers questions related to the foreign policy.

According to her, from this perspective, it is doubtful that the fact that this meeting took place, sparked reactions from certain circles when the representatives of those same circles prefer to hold open and closed meetings without the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received many applications to hold closed meetings and ensures participation, if possible.