Armenian leader, Council of Europe officials discuss reforms

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
3 Jul 07

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan today received a delegation of the
Ago monitoring group of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers
led by the Swedish ambassador to the Council of Europe, Per Sjorgren.

The Austrian, French, German, Russian, Romanian and Latvian ambassadors
to the Council of Europe, as well as officials of the secretariat of
the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers are also included in the
delegation.

Highly rating the delegation’s regular visits, the sides expressed the
opinion that Armenia has gone an important way towards honouring the
obligations it undertook on entry into the Council of Europe and has
achieved success in carrying out reforms.

Kocharyan said that the reforms carried out in all spheres of life,
first of all, are important to ourselves and we have no other way to
develop our country. Armenia is not rich in natural resources and our
main resource is the human factor that can be demonstrated only with
the implementation of large-scale reforms, Kocharyan said.

The sides also touched on the current stage of the negotiations on the
settlement of the Karabakh conflict and the meeting held between the
Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in St Petersburg. They also
exchanged views on the results of the 12 May parliamentary elections
and preparations for the forthcoming presidential elections in Armenia.

During the meeting, the sides also discussed issues concerning freedom
of the media. The ambassadors to the Council of Europe touched on the
amendments to the law on TV and radio which are being discussed at the
National Assembly. The Armenian president briefed them on the
government’s initiative regarding the amendments.