ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
 Friday


Ashotyan: From the point of view of promotion of foreign policy
interests, 2017 was successful for Armenia

Yerevan December 22

Mariana Mkrtchyan. From the standpoint of promoting foreign policy
interests, the year 2017 was successful for Armenia. On December 22,
in Yerevan, summing up the results of the year, stated the head of the
parliamentary commission on foreign affairs of the National Assembly
of Armenia Armen Ashotyan.

In his opinion, in 2017 Armenia significantly strengthened its
positions in the sphere of security. "Moreover, after the signing of
the comprehensive and expanded partnership agreement, Armenia-EU
relations have entered a new stage, I believe that relations with the
EU will be synchronized with the internal political agenda of Armenia
next year." I believe that 2018 is not unique or imposed from the EU.
will be the year of the parade of ratification of documents by the
European Union member states, "Ashotyan said. And in this context, he
added that the agreement contains transitional items, including the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which states that the conflict should be
resolved exclusively within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group and
through peaceful negotiations, taking into account the right of
peoples to self-determination. According to him, these important
principles and the ratification by the parliaments of the European
countries of this document will support these principles.

In this context, the Armenian parliamentarian touched upon the
situation in the Karabakh conflict zone and stressed that the first
half of the year was not as favorable as the second one in terms of
provocations, private violations of the ceasefire regime, incidents,
and a periodic increase in the degree of tension.

At the same time, he stressed that he had little optimism about
maintaining stability in the conflict zone. "After the Geneva meeting,
the situation in the conflict zone has stabilized more or less, but
this is not due to the fact that there are mechanisms of trust in the
conflict zone, which is due to the goodwill of the military and
political leadership of Azerbaijan, but there are no guarantees that
tomorrow this situation will not change.In this regard, I believe it
is important to introduce mechanisms of trust on the contact line and
increase the mandate of the office of the Personal Representative of
the OSCE Chairman-in-Office," Ashotyan said.

At the same time, another achievement of 2017, the Armenian
parliamentarian called the strengthening of relations with China, with
neighboring Iran, the achievement of progress in relations with
Israel.

Speaking about the Armenian-Turkish relations, Ashotyan recalled that
in 2018 the Armenian-Turkish protocols signed in 2009 in Zurich will
be removed from the agenda. He added that it is no secret to anyone
whose fault these protocols remained on paper. "Today Ankara is trying
to save its own face, however these attempts are vain," he said.

In general, he noted that the year 2017 was successful in terms of
parliamentary diplomacy, and Armenia in the international arena
defended both its own interests and promoted the interests of Artsakh.