President receives PACE Co-Rapporteurs Axel Fischer and Alan Meale

President Serzh Sargsyan received today PACE Co-Rapporteurs Axel Fischer and Alan Meale.

Stressing that as part of fact-finding missions, such meetings have already become a tradition, the Armenian president noted that they provide the opportunity to discuss issues related to multi-sectoral cooperation between Armenia and the Council of Europe (CoE), as well as to touch upon items on the PACE agenda, including those pertaining to Armenia.

Serzh Sargsyan mentioned that he is familiar with the PACE co-rapporteurs’ previous report and welcomed the fact that it affirms the RA continued commitment to implementing reforms in the areas of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

President added that notwithstanding all this, Armenia still has a lot of work to do, and our country’s authorities seek to deepen reforms in the belief that it is the only true path to building a modern law-governed state. Serzh Sargsyan highly appreciated Armenia’s cooperation with its international partners, including the CoE, highlighting the CoE major contribution to democratization in Armenia. The Armenian president noted that in recent years, Armenia has implemented consistent reforms aimed at strengthening the principles of democracy, protection of human rights and a law-governed state.

The PACE co-rapporteurs thanked the president for the reception and noted that as part of their visit to Armenia, they had had the chance to meet with a number of different political figures, legislators and government executives and look into the status of works carried out in different government bodies to meet democratic standards, and that they were satisfied with the ongoing works carried out in Armenia and for Armenia. According to them, the status of RA constitutional amendments was among the issues discussed during the aforementioned meetings. The co-rapporteurs underlined that both transparency of the amendment process and the presence of freedom of the press are very important.

The co-rapporteurs noted that their upcoming report aims to support Armenia, and according to them, there are no issues of serious concern at the given stage of making an intermediate report.

At the meeting, the RA president and the PACE co-rapporteurs also reflected upon the NK peace process within the frame of the OSCE Minsk Group.