Within the framework of his visit to Albania, National Assembly (NA) of Armenia Vice Chairman Eduard Sharmazanov, who also heads the NA Armenia-Greece parliamentary friendship group, on Tuesday met with Konstantinos Morfidis, head of the Greek delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.

Sharmazanov reflected on the friendship and shared history of the Armenian and Greek peoples, and he underscored the need for strengthening Armenia-Greece relations and expanding the domains of their cooperation.

Touching upon cooperation between the parliamentary delegations of the two countries, the interlocutors highlighted the need to assist one another within international organizations.

Separately, Sharmazanov expressed the hope that the Greek parliament will ratify, as soon as possible, the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement which Armenia and the European Union have signed.

And speaking on the process of international recognition of Armenian Genocide, the NA deputy speaker thanked Greece for passing a bill that criminalizes the denial of genocides. He added that the Armenian legislature, for its part, has adopted a statement that condemns the Greeks’ and the Assyrians’ genocide by the Ottoman Turks, from 1915 to 1923.

“Armenians and Greeks are peoples who have survived genocide,” Eduard Sharmazanov noted. “The destructive and [genocide] denialist policy of Turkey is worrisome and reprehensible.”