YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd newspaper of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: According to Zhoghovurd daily’s information, RA National Assembly [(NA)] Deputy Speaker Alen Simonyan had a meeting these days with the Catholicos of All Armenians, Karekin II.

According to our information, the reason is that the relations between Karekin II and Alen Simonyan have been tense for several months already, and the reason is the statement made by the Catholicos months ago.

The thing is that on April 14 of this year, Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II had stated that he considers it important to commute the pretrial measure [of arrest] of [ex-President] Robert Kocharyan.

And this statement of his had caused a great stir among the representatives of the halls of power; there was a reaction even at the level of Mane Gevorgyan, the spokesperson of RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

And it turns out that there were distant disputes in that period, also between the NA deputy speaker and the Catholicos, and they did not communicate anymore during these months.

And the meeting that took place these days had the intention of "making peace" between them.

Zhoghovurd daily tried to find out the information from NA Deputy Speaker Alen Simonyan, who confirmed the information we had about the meeting, but did not wish to give other details.