Foreign Minister of Armenia had meeting with the CoE Secretary General

On May 11, in Strasburg Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian participated at the 120th session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

High-ranking delegations of the CoE 47 member-states, five observer states and international organizations attended the session of the Ministerial Committee.

The agenda included issues concerning different areas of the CoE’s activity – reforms of the Council of Europe, the Council of Europe – European Union cooperation, increase of the effectiveness of activity of the European Court on Human Rights and other issues.

Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian delivered speech at the session. In his speech, the Armenian Foreign Minister expressed support for the reforms of the organization and mentioned that Armenia would continue active participation in the activity of the organization, which can bring added value to the Council. Within this context, the Minister informed about the preparatory works Forum for the Future of Democracy, which Armenia will host in Yerevan in October 2010 under the auspices of the Council of Europe.

Touching upon the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh issue, the Armenian Foreign Minister said. “The statement on Nagorno-Karabakh adopted last December in Athens by foreign ministers of the OSCE participating States emphasized the non-use of force and threat of force, territorial integrity, right of peoples to self-determination as basic principles for the resolution of the conflict. These principles are at the core of the Madrid document proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in 2007. The existence of this document was continuously denied by Azerbaijan until they claimed to have accepted it with some exceptions. If you try to find out what Azerbaijan has agreed and disagreed on, you will see there are more exceptions than what they have agreed to, and those are in their own interpretation.

Azerbaijan not only continues to misrepresent the causes and the consequences of the conflict as well as the essence of negotiations, but also resorts to the hate speech and the threats of use of force on every level and on any occasion.

Drawing on the experience of the past years Armenia stands firm on the position that any Azerbaijani attempts to intervene in the negotiation process through formats other than the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship are counter-productive. Despite Azerbaijani war mongering and against all odds Armenia will remain committed to the conflict settlement through negotiations.”
Touching upon the Armenian-Turkish relations Edward Nalbandian said. “It was the initiative of the President of Armenia to normalize relations with Turkey. In spite of many difficulties, we started the process through the good offices of Switzerland, conducted the negotiations and signed the Protocols in Zurich last year with the common understanding that there could be no preconditions in the normalization process, a position shared by the mediators, supporters and the entire international community. Following this, Turkey started to use the same language of preconditions as it was doing before the process was launched and effectively blocked the ratification of the Protocols in the Turkish parliament. This is the reason why the President of Armenia decided to suspend the ratification process in Armenia until we can see our partners in Ankara are ready again to proceed without preconditions. This step was perceived positively by international community.”

The agenda of Minister Nalbandian’s visit to Strasburg also included bilateral meetings.

Upon arriving to Strasburg Edward Nalbandian visited the Headquarters of the Council of Europe, where he had meeting with Thorbjørn Jagland, the Secretary General of the organization. The Foreign Minister of Armenia and the CoE Secretary General discussed the perspectives of the reforms of the Council of Europe, as well as regional issue. The two also touched upon the process of normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations, as well as the efforts aimed at the settlement of the Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) issue.

In the course of the meeting between Edward Nalbandian and the Foreign Minister of Slovenia Samuel Žbogar, the two discussed the possibilities for the strengthening of bilateral issues, expansion of the legal field, deepening of economic cooperation and intensification of cultural exchanges. The Ministers discussed the preparatory works of the upcoming visit of the President of Slovenia to Armenia. By Minister Samuel Žbogar’s words, the visit of the President of Slovenia will create a good opportunity for the deepening of bilateral relations within not only political, but also economic field, taking into consideration that a big group of businessmen will accompany the President.

Ministers Nalbandian and Samuel Žbogar also exchanged views on the issues of the South Caucasus region.

Completing his visit to Strasburg, the Foreign Minister of Armenia left for Brussels.