Meeting between Armenian coalition, opposition continues for 4 hours already

 August 9, 2011 - 16:09 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Regular round of negotiations between representatives of the ruling coalition and the Armenian National Congress (ANC) opposition bloc is going on for 4 hours already.

The meeting started at 12:00 Yerevan time and is still in progress, PanARMENIAN.Net correspondent reports from the ground.

During the August 4 meeting, a decision was taken to meet twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, though ANC members offered to meet every day.

Head of coalition group David Harutyunyan said earlier that the talks will first focus on the issue of pre-term presidential and parliamentary elections which has been pushed forward by ANC.

During July 26 meeting of working groups in the framework of dialogue between representatives of authorities and ANC the agenda of the oncoming talks was adopted which included two issues, first, early presidential and parliamentary elections, provision of transparency and legacy of election process; and second, political competition rules.

The first meeting between the coalition group and ANC was held on July 18. The composition of ANC delegation to negotiate with the authorities included ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan, representative of the central bureau David Shahnazaryan, a member of ANC economic committee, the head of ANC structure in Malatya Vahagn Khachatryan, People’s Party of Armenia secretary Felix Khachatryan and deputy head of Armenian National Movement Samvel Abrahamyan.

Coalition working group included David Harutyunyan (Republican Party of Armenia), Gagik Minasyan (Republican Party of Armenia), Naira Zohrabyan (Prosperous Armenia Party), Vardan Bostanjyan (Prosperous Armenia Party), Mher Shahgeldyan (Orinats Yerkir Party) and Khachik Harutyunyan (Orinats Yerkir Party).