Artak Zeynalyan receives Ambassador of Italy to Armenia

Today, Acting Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Artak Zeynalyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Italian Republic to the Republic of Armenia Vincenzo del Monaco.

The Ambassador expressed gratitude for the meeting and noted that the co-operation with the Ministry of Justice was among his priorities.

During the conversation with the Ambassador, the Acting Minister touched upon the issues related to the fight against corruption, the interior political processes and the holding of snap parliamentary elections. Talking about the interior political situation in Armenia, Artak Zeynalyan noted that the revolution having taken place in Armenia in May must be followed by change of power. “The situation in Armenia is currently anti-constitutional and will improve as a result of the snap parliamentary elections to be held in December. We have set the objective to hold such elections, the results of which the Armenian people will believe in and which will express the will of the people as accurately as possible,” the Acting Minister said. Touching upon the draft Electoral Code that the National Assembly failed to adopt, Artak Zeynalyan emphasised that the draft would provide greater opportunities for political minorities to be represented in the National Assembly and would make the Parliament become more democratic. The Acting Minister of Justice expressed hope that the draft would be adopted during an extraordinary session of the National Assembly to be convened at the initiative of the Deputies and, in case of failure of adoption of the draft, he assured that the Government, by virtue of the existing Code, may hold such elections, the results of which everyone will believe in, as was the case with the early elections of the Council of Elders of Yerevan.

Touching upon the activities being carried out for the fight against corruption, Deputy Minister Suren Krmoyan informed that during a recent meeting with high-ranking OSCE officials in Vienna, an agreement was reached to co-operate with the Italian counterparts through the OSCE channel in order to establish a new anti-corruption investigative body on the basis of the Italian practice.

A number of issues related to the participation of the Deputy Minister in the conference on “Developing Anti-Corruption Strategies in the Digital Age: Recent Trends and Best Practices within the Framework of the OSCE” — to be held in Rome in November — were also discussed during the meeting.