Prescott Meets Government, Opposition Leaders

Mediamax has an update on the current visit by the Head of the PACE Election Observation Mission, former British deputy prime minister John Prescott, to Armenia. The news item says that Prescott has met with both representatives of the government and opposition and has also commented on the imminent ruling of the Constitutional Court on the final results of the 19 February presidential election.

As Mediamax was told in the press service of the parliament, during the meeting with the Leader of “Orinats Yerkir” faction Artur Baghdasarian, John Prescott noted that it is necessary to recognize the rights and authority of the Constitutional Court (CC), irrespective of what decision it will make concerning the results of presidential elections.

John Prescott informed that Ex-President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosian put forward conditions for a dialogue, which are concordant with the requirements of the European Union. He noted that all the sides are interested in the solution of the problem by means of a dialogue.

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During the meeting with the Head of PACE Observation Mission, Leader of “Heritage” faction Raffi Hovhannissian noted the importance of ruling out usage of double standards at various levels. According to him, the trial in CC proceeds in conditions of a state of emergency, which cannot be considered legal and which will deepen the distrust of the society towards the judicial system.

Raffi Hovhannisian also expressed opinion that “little effort is taken up for establishing dialogue”, one-sided information is provided and exclusively representatives of the opposition are detained.