NA Draft Decision Authored by Armenia Faction Not Endorsed

At the extraordinary sitting convened on September 10, the RA NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs debated the NA draft decision on Amending the Decision of the National Assembly on Creating Standing Committees of the National Assembly of the eighth convocation of the Republic of Armenia authored by the NA Armenia Faction, by which the faction proposed to rename the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations and Artsakh.

As the key rapporteur, the deputy of the Armenia Faction Aghvan Vardanyan has said, the draft is completely aimed at strengthening the Armenian statehood and sovereignty. 'Especially at this stage, when different processes take place around Artsakh and Armenia, we, as a parliamentary country, should be able to include the problems of Artsakh, and the issues related to Artsakh in the functions of our Standing Committees,' he said.

According to the proposal, the committee to be created should deal with international relations, relations with the UN, the CoE (Council of Europe), the OSCE and other international organizations, inter-parliamentary agreements and ties, relations with Friendship Groups, relations with Artsakh, treaties between the RA and Artsakh and the implementation of them, the settlement of the Artsakh issue, the regulation and the development of the relations between the RA and AR, international recognition of Artsakh, the approximation of the laws of Armenia and Artsakh.

In his co-report, the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs Vladimir Vardanyan expressed opinion that the opposition counterparts did not choose right toolkit for the solutions of the issues.He has noticed that the inter-parliamentary committee between Armenia and Artsakh has been created and functions effectively aimed at to discuss the issues related to Artsakh, and there is no need to reduce the discussion of such delicate issues to the level of a sectoral committee.

As a result of voting, the draft was not endorsed. 4 MPs voted in favor, 7 - abstained.

'We should act agreed on the Artsakh issue and if we do not have the conviction to make a joint decision, then the issue should not be made a subject of public discussion. It is not politically serious. The problem of Artsakh should not be made a field of political struggle,' at the end of the sitting, the Committee member Vigen Khachatryan expressed such viewpoint.