The officials discussed the improvement of bilateral cooperation between Serbia and Armenia and cooperation within international organisations.

The Head of the PFG with Armenia Aleksandar Cotric thanked the Honorary Consul for Armenia’s vote against Kosovo’s UNESCO bid. He said that Serbia and Armenia have had no diplomatic relations at the level of embassies since 1993 and these matters have been relegated to the two countries’ respective embassies in Athens. However, Armenia has its Honorary Consul in Serbia, as does Serbia in Armenia ever since 2006.

The Head of the PFG with Armenia spoke about the relations between Serbia and Armenia in the previous period, with a special focus on the Serbian delegation and the Serbian President taking part in the centenary of the Armenian people’s suffering at the beginning of the 20th century. He said that the two nations confirmed their friendship on that day, especially in view of the fact that Armenia has not recognised the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo. Cotric opined that the two countries’ economic cooperation could be better, hoping that the members of the PFG with Armenia would soon visit the country.

The Honorary Consul of the Republic of Serbia in Armenia Babken Simonyan said that Serbia and Armenia share historic and cultural relations, evidenced in the fact that Armenians had been mentioned on the territory of Serbia as far back as the 13th century, in the times of St. Sava who invited Armenian builders to come and help in the construction of Serbian monuments and churches. He opined that the cooperation between the two countries should gain a new dimension today and reaffirmed that Armenia will not recognise the independence of Kosovo.

Milovan Drecun, member of the PFG with Armenia, commended the cooperation of the Serbian and Armenian delegations at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO PA) and urged for an intensification of economic cooperation between the two countries.

The meeting with Honorary Consul Simonyan also touched on cooperation in the fields of medicine, science and higher education and the officials discussed some concrete steps toward establishing cooperation between the universities.

This meeting also gave the members of the PFG with Armenia the opportunity to congratulate the Honorary Consul on the medal he was awarded by the President of the Republic of Serbia on Statehood Day, and on the 40 years of unrelenting work toward improving the relations between the Armenian and Serbian people.

In addition to the Head of the PFG with Armenia, the meeting was also attended by PFG members Milovan Drecun, Velinka Tosic and Branko Djurovic.