SPEAKER OF ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT LAYS A NUMBER OF CLAIMS TO GERMAN AMBASSADOR REGARDING THE PROTOCOL OF FORTHCOMING VISIT OF BUNDESTAG’S DELEGATION TO YEREVAN
arminfo
2007-08-29 17:48:00
The Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly, Tigran Torosyan, met
the newly appointed German Ambassador to Armenia, Andrea Joana-Maria
Wiktorin, Wednesday.
The Armenian parliamentary press-service told ArmInfo that the Speaker
congratulated the A.Wiktorin on the appointment to Ambassador’s
position and expressed hope that her activity in Armenia will
contribute to promotion of bilateral relations and consolidation of
inter-parliamentary cooperation.
T.Torosyan noted that these relations have been successfully
developing, though there are some problems to be solved.
For her part, the German Ambassador pointed out that the development
of inter-parliamentary relations will become one of the priority
tasks of her diplomatic activity. In this aspect, she stressed the
significance of the forthcoming visit of Bundestag’s delegation to
Yerevan. T.Torosyan expressed his content with German parliamentarians’
striving to deepen cooperation with their Armenian colleagues,
but at the same time he expressed bewilderment over some issues
of protocolar character. Particularly, the Armenian Speaker was
bewildered with the fact that initially Azeri mass media were informed
of the visit. T.Torosyan pointed out that Bundestag has excellent
organizational traditions, and he was surprised at the fact that
the date of the visit, its format and program of meetings were not
preliminarily agreed through administrative channels. The Ambassador of
Germany agreed that the order of holding meetings should be followed,
she expressed pity for what had happened and promised to find out
the reason.
The meeting also covered the issue of operation of German foundations
in Armenia, and in this connection T.Torosyan noted that the "Ebert"
and "Nauman" foundations are working exclusively with opposition
parties, while they should work with the parties whose activity has
similar ideology. He pointed out the significance of German experience
in establishing of multi-party system in Armenia, and said that the
one- sided activity of the foundations is incomprehensible. He also
noted that this issue was discussed with the pervious Ambassador
of Germany to Armenia, who explained it by the fact that the German
Government has no direct relations with German foundations and can’t
influence their activity. At the same time, taking into account
Germany’s great role in Europe and the good of studying the rich
German experience for Armenia, T.Torosyan pointed out the importance
of German foundations’ even work with Armenian parties.