RAFFI HOVANNISIAN ON PARLIAMENTARY MISSION TO SERBIA, KOSOVO

armradio.am
28.04.2008 18:10

Raffi K. Hovannisian, chairman of the Heritage Party and leader of
its group in the National Assembly, took part from April 21 to 25 in
a mission of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) to Serbia and
Kosovo. Armenia was also represented by General Artur Aghabekyan,
who heads the republic’s delegation to the parliamentary assembly.

The mission, which was led by British MP Michael Clapham who chairs
the NATO PA Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security and which
comprised members from more than ten countries, visited Belgrade and
Pristina to learn first-hand about the current situation in the region.

In Belgrade, Raffi Hovannisian and his colleagues held meetings with
a roundtable of NATO ambassadors; Deputy Speaker Miloljub Albijanic of
the Serbian National Assembly; Chairman Marko Djurisic of the Serbian
delegation to the NATO PA and several MPs representing the Standing
Committees on European Integration, on Kosovo and Metohija, and on
Defense and Security; Deputy Minister for Kosovo Ljubomir Kljakic;
Deputy Foreign Minister Borislav Stefanovic; Lieutenant General Zdravko
Ponos, Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff; officials of
the Atlantic Council of Serbia; as well as NGO representatives and
university students.

Among the topics broached by the Armenian participants in Belgrade
were ways and means to surmount the crisis in Serbian-NATO relations,
Serbia’s recent anti-Armenian vote at the United Nations, and the
imperative not to employ the prospect of recognition of the Mountainous
Karabagh Republic and its legally-declared independence as a bargaining
or public-relations chip vis-a-vis the international community.

In Pristina, the combined parliamentary delegation was received by
Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and members of government; Speaker Jakup
Krasniqi, parliamentary leaders, and minority representatives of the
Assembly of Kosovo; Ambassador Tim Guldimann of the OSCE Mission
in Kosovo; Ambassador Lawrence Rossin, Principal Deputy Special
Representative of the UN Secretary General; Ambassadors Pieter Feith
and Roy Reeve of the European Union Representation in Kosovo; as
well as KFOR Deputy Commander Major General Gerhard Stelz and other
high-ranking officers.

During the Pristina meetings Raffi Hovannisian and Artur Aghabekyan
underscored the Transatlantic and Kosovar need to overcome artificial
reliance on the concept of "uniqueness" or "sui generis" and thus the
apparent pursuit of an unjust monopoly on liberty, self-determination
and sovereignty which flouts the rule of law, and at KFOR headquarters
inquired as to why Azerbaijan had hastily recalled its troops from
the multinational peacekeeping force.

On April 24, Hovannisian, Aghabekyan, and Armenian Defense Ministry
interpreter Aram Hovhannisyan paid a special visit to the 34 Armenian
peacekeepers who are serving on a Greek base in the US-supervised
sector of Kosovo. In a most moving meeting on the 93rd anniversary of
the Armenian Genocide, a ceremony of prayers, speeches, and questions
and answers delivered the conclusion that there could be no higher
monument to the memory of the victims, the homes, and the lands of
the Great Armenian Dispossession than the daily duty which each and
every Armenian soldier fulfills at home and abroad.

The Armenian delegation also consulted on base with the visiting deputy
prime minister of the Hellenic Republic, its deputy defense minister,
and the general in command of its land forces.