YEREVAN, JULY 17, ARMENPRESS. While on an official visit to Russia, Speaker of Armenia’s Parliament Ara Babloyan was hosted by Chairman of Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin on July 17, press service of the Parliament told Armenpress.

Vyacheslav Volodin congratulated Ara Babloyan on being elected as Speaker of Armenia’s Parliament.

“Armenia for us is a strategic and reliable partner”, he said and expressed hope the relations of the parliaments of the two countries will further strengthen and deepen.

“This year is a jubilee year in the Armenian-Russian centuries-old relations since we mark the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Russia”, Speaker Babloyan said.

Speaking about the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Babloyan said: “On July 4 of 2017 the Azerbaijani side launched another provocation: after the April aggression of 2016 the Azerbaijani armed forces for the first time applied multiple rocket launchers. Deploying the firing posts near the civilian settlements Azerbaijan used its own population as a human shield. It could be possible to avoid such provocations, as well as numerous human losses due to it if Azerbaijan was committed to the agreements reached at the Vienna and St. Petersburg summits in 2016”.

Coming to the Armenian-Russian cooperation, Ara Babloyan said the law adopted recently in Russia which bans working with foreign driving licenses in Russia creates major difficulties for Armenians working in Russia. The Speaker proposed to revise this approach.

In response, the Russian State Duma Speaker said the adoption of the law was conditioned exclusively by traffic safety since working drivers do not know Russian traffic rules because they don't know Russian. Given that the law is already adopted, Vyacheslav Volodin proposed to grant Russian an official status in Armenia.

Speaker Babloyan, in response to this proposal, said there is no such issue in Armenia’s agenda to grant Russian an official status. He stated that Russian is taught in all Armenian schools which fully satisfies the solution of the problem.

Volodin said the Russian side is open for discussions. Agreement was reached to discuss this issue later aimed at finding the possible alternative solutions.

The sides also discussed issues on strengthening the cooperation at international platforms, agreements were reached on introducing new working formats.