Government Delegation Set to Dialogue with Opposition Holds Closed-Doors Meeting

The delegation of ruling coalition party members created to dialogue with the Armenian National Congress (HAK) held a consultation in the National Assembly on Monday. The delegates are currently not providing any details as to what issues were discussed, reports RFE/RL’s Armenian service.

Head of the delegation, Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) MP Davit Harutyunyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that their meeting is closed to the public and the press. Another delegate from the Republican Party of Armenia also refused to provide any information, saying that all questions will be answered tomorrow.

Tomorrow, on Jul. 26,  the next meeting between HAK and the ruling authorities will take place in the RA Government Guest House at noon. It is expected that the parties will establish the agenda for dialogue tomorrow.

Weighing in on the upcoming meeting, HAK delegation leader Levon Zurabyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that it can be considered “a first meeting of complete negotiations.”

“Because during the previous meeting, the powers of the government’s delegation were not confirmed, it wasn’t understandable what issues they were able to discuss, but we received the answer to all these questions and now we’re moving to full negotiations,” he said.

Asked whether their delegation hopes that the dialogue agenda will be established on Tuesday (which didn’t happen during the last meeting), Zurabyan said, “Such an issue wasn’t put forth at the last meeting. Only the issue of specifying the format was put forth at the previous meeting, and now we are just beginning full negotiations, and naturally, we have to discuss how these negotiations are going to be built, including the question of establishing the agenda.”