YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 19, ARMENPRESS. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of Armenia and the Council of the Federation Committee on Foreign Affairs of Russia hold a joint session for the first time in Yerevan on November 19, reports “Armenpress”.

Chairman of the Armenian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Artak Zakaryan delivered a welcoming speech at the session. He expressed hope that the joint session will be held in a constructive atmosphere and will be directed towards a productive discussion over issues of mutual interest existing in the bilateral agenda.

“Such meetings and discussions at the parliamentary level promote the stable and dynamic development of ties between the Parliaments of Armenia and Russia. We highly appreciate the Armenian-Russian parliamentary cooperation both in bilateral and multilateral formats”, Artak Zakaryan said.

He said the existing level of relations between Armenia and Russia and the cooperation way is based on the atmosphere of trust and the guarantees of mutual assistance in difficult situations. “The friendship of the Armenian and Russian people has a centuries-old history and the relations between our states also have developed in this context. The existence of reliable cooperation in military, political, economic and energy sectors serves as a firm base for bilateral friendly ties. There is no field where we haven’t registered stable development and progress mechanisms”, he said.

The MP said Armenia highly appreciates Russia’s role and significance in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement within the framework of the OSCE Minsk mediatory mission.

Vice Prime Minister of Armenia, Minister of Economic Integration and Reforms Vache Gabrielyan said after Armenia’s membership to the EAEU, the Armenian exports to the Union member states registered an average growth of more than 50%, most of which falls on Russia. “Of course, the export has been grown by 14% to the European Union, and we can suppose from this that the export growth has been diversified taking into account the fact that accelerated growth has been recorded in the export of herbal products, textiles, precious and semi-precious stones and metals, but the export of mineral products has decreased by 4.7%. Of course, here are certain issues in terms of prices, but it is important to state that we have achieved growth in the export of agricultural and light industry sectors”, Vache Gabrielyan said.

He said the integration processes require huge efforts stating that Armenia utilizes the cooperation potential in all possible formats by involving inter-parliamentary, inter-governmental, inter-agency, professional and even wide public circles.

“We expect to hear problems, receive proposals on strengthening the cooperation as a result of an interesting discussion of the legislators”, the Vice PM said.

Chairperson of the Council of the Federation Committee on Foreign Affairs of Russia Konstantin Kosachev in his speech said they arrived in Yerevan with great expectations to take part in the joint session works. “I think that there are three main reasons that we have decided to hold the session in such format. The first one is that there is a real and new agenda in our joint work. We are living in the conditions of ongoing global financial-economic crisis. And in these circumstances we have a number of contemporary issues to solve. It is already two years that the Eurasian Economic Union has been formed, our countries are members of it, and there is a chance to discuss the collected experience, to understand where we need to work. I am confident that today by listening the experts, we will be convinced that Armenia’s and Russia’s participation to the EAEU integration is in compliance with the national interests of the states”, Kosachev said.

During the joint session, the Armenian and Russian MPs, as well as the invited experts will discuss the possibility of expanding the Armenian-Russian economic cooperation within the frames of the EAEU, regional security issues, the Armenian-Russian cooperation within CSTO, as well as the Armenian-Russian inter-parliamentary cooperation within international platforms.