YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and Thorbjørn Jagland – Secretary General of the Council of Europe, delivered a press conference with results of their meeting in Strasbourg, the President’s Office told ARMENPRESS.

Below is the full transcript of the President’s remarks.

“Thank you Mr. Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am happy to be once again hosted in the Council of Europe. I find my visit to be symbolic, because tomorrow, on January 25th, the 17th anniversary of Armenia’s membership to the Council of Europe will be marked.

The Armenia of 2018 is completely different from the Armenia of 2001, our country has reached significant results in democracy, human rights and strengthening of the rule of law, where the long year valuable cooperation with the Council of Europe has its significant contribution. We are grateful for it.

As always, we had a comprehensive discussion with Secretary General Jagland. I am happy to say for the record that our views over the discussed issues are very close. We both noted that especially in the last decade complex reforms have been carried out in guaranteeing fundamental freedoms in Armenia, more open and effective administration and ensuring a dynamic civil society. These are proved also by the reports of the statutory and monitoring bodies of the Council of Europe. The first stakeholder and addressee of this cooperation, certainly is the citizen of the Republic of Armenia – this is our vision of duly realization of commitments assumed before the Council of Europe.

Armenia is currently swiftly transitioning to a parliamentary administration system. We are grateful that the Council of Europe is bringing its valuable contribution to this process also. Certainly, we continue complex legislative reforms under the new Constitution through cooperation with the Venice Commission and the Council of Europe independent monitoring committees.

Of course, we also discussed issues relating to the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. I thanked Mr. Jagland for supporting the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, which is significant in terms of advancing the negotiations process. I reaffirmed support to the view often voiced by the Secretary General that there shouldn’t be “gray zones” in Europe in the issue of human rights protection. This means that the Council of Europe must equally view the rights of citizens living in conflict zones, being guided by the neutrality principle in the status issue.

We agreed over the separation of jurisdictions of various international structures and “distribution of work” between them. With this conviction we again states that the priority of the Council of Europe is human rights protection. Regarding the settlement of conflicts, in this matter structures and format vested with internationally agreed mandates for the settlement of the given conflict are authorized.

I am glad that despite all difficulties Mr. Jagland succeeds in effectively advancing the Council of Europe’s agenda and maintain the organization’s reputation high. We believe that the guarantee of solution of issues facing our organization is dialogue, and the voice of all member states should be heard in this dialogue for ensuring of integrity and unity of the Council of Europe.

I reaffirmed my invitation to visit Armenia addressed to Mr. Jagland, to continue our open and constructive dialogue, advancing the Armenia-Council of Europe agenda, as well as to assess the results of the constitutional reforms, in which, as I mentioned earlier, the Council of Europe had had its unique contribution.

Thank you.”