Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Armenian Parliamentarians Call On Kosovo Not To Monopolize Right To

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Armenian Parliamentarians Call On Kosovo Not To Monopolize Right To

    ARMENIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS CALL ON KOSOVO NOT TO MONOPOLIZE RIGHT TO LIBERTY AND SOVEREIGNTY

    PanARMENIAN.Net
    28.04.2008 17:16 GMT+04:00

    /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Raffi K. Hovannisian, chairman of the Heritage
    Party and leader of its group in the National Assembly, took part
    from in a mission of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA)
    to Serbia and Kosovo April 21 to 25. Armenia was also represented
    by Artur Aghabekyan, who heads the republic's delegation to the
    parliamentary assembly.

    The mission, which was led by British MP Michael Clapham who chairs
    the NATO PA Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security and which
    comprised members from more than ten countries, visited Belgrade and
    Pristina to learn first-hand about the current situation in the region.

    In Belgrade, Raffi Hovannisian and his colleagues held meetings with
    a roundtable of NATO ambassadors; Deputy Speaker Miloljub Albijanic of
    the Serbian National Assembly; Chairman Marko Djurisic of the Serbian
    delegation to the NATO PA and several MPs representing the Standing
    Committees on European Integration, on Kosovo and Metohija, and on
    Defense and Security; Deputy Minister for Kosovo Ljubomir Kljakic;
    Deputy Foreign Minister Borislav Stefanovic; Lieutenant General Zdravko
    Ponos, Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff; officials of
    the Atlantic Council of Serbia; as well as NGO representatives and
    university students.

    Among the topics broached by the Armenian participants in Belgrade
    were ways and means to surmount the crisis in Serbian-NATO relations,
    Serbia's recent anti-Armenian vote at the United Nations, and the
    imperative not to employ the prospect of recognition of the Mountainous
    Karabakh Republic and its legally-declared independence as a bargaining
    or public-relations chip vis-a-vis the international community.

    In Pristina, the combined parliamentary delegation was received by
    Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and members of government; Speaker Jakup
    Krasniqi, parliamentary leaders, and minority representatives of the
    Assembly of Kosovo; Ambassador Tim Guldimann of the OSCE Mission
    in Kosovo; Ambassador Lawrence Rossin, Principal Deputy Special
    Representative of the UN Secretary General; Ambassadors Pieter Feith
    and Roy Reeve of the European Union Representation in Kosovo; as
    well as KFOR Deputy Commander Major General Gerhard Stelz and other
    high-ranking officers.

    During the Pristina meetings Raffi Hovannisian and Artur Aghabekyan
    underscored the Transatlantic and Kosovar need to overcome artificial
    reliance on the concept of "uniqueness" or "sui generis" and thus the
    apparent pursuit of an unjust monopoly on liberty, self-determination
    and sovereignty which flouts the rule of law, and at KFOR headquarters
    inquired as to why Azerbaijan had hastily recalled its troops from
    the multinational peacekeeping force.

    On April 24, Hovannisian, Aghabekyan, and Armenian Defense Ministry
    interpreter Aram Hovhannisyan paid a special visit to the 34 Armenian
    peacekeepers who are serving on a Greek base in the US-supervised
    sector of Kosovo. In a most moving meeting on the 93rd anniversary of
    the Armenian Genocide, a ceremony of prayers, speeches, and questions
    and answers delivered the conclusion that there could be no higher
    monument to the memory of the victims, the homes, and the lands of
    the Great Armenian Dispossession than the daily duty which each and
    every Armenian soldier fulfills at home and abroad.

    The Armenian delegation also consulted on base with the visiting deputy
    prime minister of the Hellenic Republic, its deputy defense minister,
    and the general in command of its land forces.
Working...
X