On May 12 the Head of the Polish-Armenian Parliamentary Friendship Group of the Republic of Poland led by the Senator Lukasz Abgarowicz arrived in Armenia on a three-day official visit.
On the same day the members of the Polish-Armenian Parliamentary Friendship Group in the National Assembly laid flowers at the memorial perpetuating the memory of October 27, 1999 victims of the crimes.
In the parliament the first meeting was with the members of the Armenia-Poland Friendship Group, which was attended by the Ambassador of Armenia to Poland and the Ambassador of Poland to Armenia Zdzislaw Raczynski.
Welcoming the Polish counterparts in the Armenian Parliament the Head of the Armenia-Poland Parliamentary Group, ARF-D member Hrayr Karapetyan once again extended his condolences to the Polish people on the occasion of the tragic air crash and expressed hope that the Polish people will find strength to overcome all the problems.
Highlighting the relations of the existing different levels between Armenia and Poland, the Head of the Armenia-Poland Parliamentary Group Hrayr Karapetyan opined that the cooperation of the Parliamentary Friendship Groups formed between the parliaments of the two countries would be of essential importance with respect to the further development and deepening of the relations.
Both the Armenian and Polish counterparts emphasized the cooperation within the frameworks of the EU Eastern Partnership. In that context the Head of the Polish-Armenian Parliamentary Friendship Group Lukasz Abgarowicz noted that they were willing to support Armenia’s European integration process, and in the nearest future they are envisaging to to take steps for facilitating the procedure of providing entrance visas.
In the course of the meeting the sides touched upon the problems of the Armenian-Turkish relations’ normalization and Karabakh conflict.
Introducing his view on the Armenian-Turksih relations’ normalization Lukasz Abgarowicz said in particular: “The day will come when Turkey would accept what happened, the historical truth.”
The Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations also received the members of the Polish-Armenian Parliamentary Friendship Group of the Parliament of the Republic of Poland.
At the guests’ request ARF-D leader Armen Rustamyan touched upon the Armenian-Turkish protocols, which were signed in Zurich. Presenting the approaches of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun on the above-mentioned issues, Mr. Rustamyan highlighted the normalization of the relations between Armenia and Turkey without preconditions, once again stressing that the protocols should exclusively refer to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey and opening of the border and should not give opportunities to bring forth the preconditions by Turkey. Talking about the suspension of the ratification process of the Armenian-Turkish protocols said that Turkey tried to implement its preconditions by the ratification of the protocols.
Mr. Rustamyan emphasized the experience and support of Poland in the issue of Armenia’s European integration and the cooperation in Euronest. Mr. Rustamyan highly assessed the level of the political dialogue between Armenia and Poland, as well as all existing preconditions for deepening the further development of bilateral relations both in bilateral and multilateral formats.
