Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan received today the visiting President of Greece, Karolos Populias.
The two Presidents had a tête-à-tête meeting at the Presidential Palace, following by negotiations with the participation of delegations and a document signing ceremony.
“It’s a great honor for me to host the President of friendly Greece,” President Sargsyan told reporters after the meeting.
“We had a detailed discussion on all issues on the bilateral agenda and the routes of expansion of collaboration. We agreed that the inter-state relations between Armenia and Greece have always been on a high level,” the Armenian President said, emphasizing the reciprocal visits, the development of economic, scientific-educational, cultural, decentralized and inter-parliamentary ties.
Serzh Sargsyan hailed the constructive dialogue established between the Defense Ministries of the two countries and reminded that the cooperation between Armenian and Greek servicemen in peacekeeping operations received the highest assessment.
“During the meeting we reiterated the willingness to deepen the cooperation between our countries in multilateral formats, including in the framework of the Greece-EU partnership. I stressed Armenia’s resoluteness to develop relations with the European Union in all possible directions and voiced hope that friendly Greece would support us on that path,” President Sargsyan said.
The Armenian President said he briefed his Greek counterpart on the latest developments in the settlement of the Karabakh issue. “Armenia highly appreciates Greece’s balanced and constructive position on the issue, which envisages support to the OSCE Minsk Group activity and the ways of solution proposed by the mediators,” he added.
“We are grateful to Greece for being one of the first to recognize the Armenian Genocide with the force of law and for the recent important legislative steps in the struggle against its denial. The adoption of the anti-hate crime law on Combating Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism was an effective tool for struggling against denial,” President Sargsyan said.
“In 2015 the Armenian people will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Armenia will become one of the important platforms for the international struggle against this crime against humanity,” the President said and added that he has invited Greek President Karolos Papoulias to participate in the commemoration events to be organized in Yerevan on April 24.
During the meeting the two Presidents discussed a number of urgent issues on international agenda, as well. “As representatives of the two ancient Christian nations, we are especially concerned about the state of Christian communities in the Middle East,” President Sargsyan concluded.
