YEREVAN, JUNE 19, ARMENPRESS. The joint session of the Security Councils of Armenia and Artsakh is being held in Yerevan today.

The session is co-chaired by Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan.

Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan and his Artsakh counterpart Artur Tovmasyan also attended the session.

During the session the Armenian PM and the President of Artsakh delivered remarks.

In his remarks the Armenian PM congratulated all members of the Artsakh Security Council on appointment. The PM made several observations during his speech over issues relating to Artsakh’s participation to the negotiation process, Armenia’s approaches on the content part of the negotiations and the peace process.

“During our joint session on December 23, 2019 I specifically highlighted the importance of the general elections in Artsakh. The elections held in Artsakh were pursuing three key goals. Firstly – to give an opportunity to the people of Artsakh to elect through the exercise of human rights those authorities who will organize the country’s political and public life. Secondly – to give an opportunity to the people of Artsakh to elect those authorities who must ensure their security. Armenia, of course, will continue supporting the Artsakh authorities in their commitment to protect the people of Artsakh, continuing to be the security guarantor of Artsakh. Thirdly – as a result of the presidential and parliamentary elections the people of Artsakh must have given a mandate to their authorities to represent Artsakh also in the negotiation table.

Now, when the elections are over, and the leadership has been formed, we should note that these three goals have been implemented at best. As a result of competitive and democratic elections Artsakh has a leadership who expresses its people’s aspirations to political reforms, economic and infrastructure development. As a result of elections and formation of the leadership a key process of solidarity and unity of political forces took place in Artsakh, which, I am sure, further strengthened the security of Artsakh.

Finally, the election highlighted the role of the Artsakh people and the leadership elected by them in the peaceful settlement process. It’s obvious that without complete engagement of the Artsakh authorities there cannot be a major progress in the negotiation process as each progress needs capacity of reaching and implementing key agreements, and it’s here that the democratic mandate received by the Artsakh authorities is irreplaceable”.

The full text of the PM’s speech will be available later.