Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan received a delegation of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, consisting of Co-Chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues Frank Pallone, Jackie Speier and David Valadao, as well as Congress members Anna Eshoo, Tulsi Gabbard and Jim Sensenbrenner.
The Head of the Armenian Government highly appreciated US Congressmen’s activities in the development and strengthening of US-Armenian friendly relationship in various spheres and thanked the US Congress, especially the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues for providing foreign assistance to Armenia and Artsakh.
The Prime Minister and the US lawmakers dwelt on economic cooperation between the two countries. From the perspective of inbound investments, the Premier highlighted the signing of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, as well as Armenia’s inclusion by the US Congress and Government in the list of countries benefiting from the GSP trade regime.
Karen Karapetyan described as effective the ongoing cooperation between Armenia and the United States in the field of information and high technologies, where a number of successful projects have already been implemented.
The sides exchanged views over the further improvement of the legal-contractual framework regulating trade and economic relations. In this regard, they discussed issues related to the signing of an agreement on avoiding double taxation. Prime Minister Karapetyan attached importance to the active work of the Armenian-American intergovernmental commission.
Reference was also made to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Karen Karapetyan underscored that Armenia sees the solution to the problem exclusively in the peaceful settlement and stressed the importance of continued efforts by the United States as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair country.
“Our strategy is being built on the assumption that we have to be strong enough to ensure our security. I think the developments in our region are very clear and transparent. We would appreciate if the international community could express a clear-cut attitude,” the Prime Minister pointed out.