MOSCOW (RFE/RL)–The recently elected speaker of the Armenian parliament has described as %u218positive and efficient’ his first official visit abroad in the new capacity.
Hovik Abrahamian was in Moscow Monday for meetings at the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Federal Assembly, including with counterpart Boris Gryzlov.
The two reportedly signed a memorandum agreeing on the need to make the implementation of existing inter-parliamentary agreemen’s more effective. The memorandum also called for a more efficient parliamentary control over the implementation of agreemen’s and treaties signed between the two states.
During his meeting with Gryzlov, Abrahamian also stressed the positive role of Russia’s latest initiatives in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.
The Abrahamian-led delegation also held meetings at the Assembly’s upper house, the Council of the Federation.
During the meetings, Abrahamian particularly stressed the necessity of “coordinating positions at European structures and raising the level of Armenian-Russian economic contacts in conditions of the ongoing economic and financial crises.”
Another issue on the agenda of Abrahamian’s Moscow meetings was the need for continued Russian investmen’s into the industrial enterprises in Armenia that had been handed over to Russia for concessionary management.
At the Armenian embassy in Moscow, Abrahamian also met with Nikolay Bordyuzha, the secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led defense alliance of seven former Soviet republics in which Armenia currently holds the rotating presidency.
One of the main issues reportedly discussed by the sides was the organization of a meeting of parliament heads of CSTO-member states in Yerevan in the first half of next year.
