SEVERAL LARGE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES TO BE ORGANIZED IN 2006 AT RA NA

Noyan Tapan
Apr 04 2006

YEREVAN, APRIL 4, NOYAN TAPAN. Several large international conferences
will be organized this year at RA National Assembly. They will be
dedicated to issues of fighting terrorism, ban on chemical weapons,
cooperation between regions and towns, development of democratic
reforms. RA National Assembly Speaker Artur Baghdasarian informed about
it at the April 4 press conference mentioning that there are already
agreements, in particular, with the European Union and the U.S around
organizing them. The coming international conference will be held on
April 6-7. It is dedicated to problems of fighting corruption. As
NA Speaker mentioned, after the conference it is expected that
Armenia will join the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against
Corruption (GOPAC) authoritative international organization. A great
number of countries have joined this organization. The organization’s
Secretary General and representative delegations of more than 10
countries, including the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Poland,
the Ukraine, Georgia, will take part in the conference. According
to Artur Baghdasarian, in case of joining GOPAC a good opportunity
will be created in Armenia for involving the political parties, the
civil society and mass media in fighting corruption and the latters
will be able to as actively as possible take part in the process of
public monitoring on using all credits and grants received by the
country. It was mentioned that at present Armenia is already a member
to another organization on fighting corruption, Group of States Against
Corruption (GRECO). However, in NA Speaker’s opinion, it is difficult
to overestimate the political significance of membership to GOPAC. As
NA Speaker affirmed, the formation of the respective structures on
fighting corruption only at the level of the executive power cannot
be very efficient and this regards not only Armenia. “We should
do our best for the law not to be powerless before arbitrariness,
especially in some cases and spheres we meet,” NA Speaker declared.