Alen Simonyan's Remarkable Visit to Russia

The newspaper "Hraparak" reports: "A delegation led by the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, Alen Simonyan, was in Moscow on June 27-28 to participate in the 31st meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Commission. This visit was noteworthy in the context of the recent non-standard relations between Armenia and Russia.

Yesterday we asked Alen Simonyan whether he felt he had upset his Russian counterparts, especially considering his statement that Russia has occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The deputy characterized this as a 'scandalous lie', stating that the media had manipulated his words: 'We had two meetings, the first with Sergey Neverov, the Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, who also heads the United Russia faction, and the second with a delegation led by Yuri Vorobyov, the Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council and the co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Commission on the Russian side. Each expressed their gratitude twice, both for our delegation's position in Georgia and for our voting in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.'

When asked whether the gratitude was specifically related to the voting with Rubinyan or the absence of Igityan, he responded: 'It was clear to everyone that there was confusion; during the voting on the Russia issue, a colleague approached Rubinyan, they discussed something, and he mechanically voted against. The next day there was a vote related to Russia, and the Armenian delegation was entirely in favor.'

And what about Igityan's absence? 'I am aware that he felt unwell and did not participate. So, the Armenian-Russian relations are much better than they have ever been.'