YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenia highly appreciates Japan’s balanced stance over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly Armenia-Japan friendship group Samvel Farmanyan said after the exhibition of Japanese calligraphers’ works.

“We expect Japan will continue to have an understanding approach and will express its support to the issues of vital importance for Armenia at all directions”, he said, “Armenpress” reported.

Samvel Farmanyan expressed gratitude to the friendly people and the government of Japan for providing more than half a billion dollars direct aid since the independence of Armenia, for the huge support aimed at implementing reforms in Armenia, and for the positive attitude over a number of key projects that are put on the discussion agenda.

Samvel Farmanyan said the Armenian and Japanese people have a number of similarities. “Our countries have similarities related to the historical-geographical environment, various challenges within the history, scarce resources for overcoming those challenges, the ability on relying on the human resource. All of these serve a very important base for our friendship. We are very happy to realize that the Armenian-Japanese relations have achieved significant progress within a few years”, the MP said.