Parliament adjourns as shouting match erupts between lawmakers |armenpress.am|

The quarrel began after the opposition MPs accused Rubinyan – who is the Special Representative for Dialogue with Turkey – in being an agent of influence of Turkey. He strongly denied these accusations.

Then, the Vice Speaker Hakob Arshakyan took the floor to again address the matter.

"I’d like to inform our opposition colleagues, that to try and label a man, to connect the fact of him having been in any given country during the revolution or in any given period of time with being an agent of influence is the same as accusing someone of being an agent just because of their surname. Please look among yourselves, you might find a suspicion surname," Arshakyan said.

Ruben Rubinyan, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia and Special Representative of Armenia for normalization of relations with Turkey, addressed a number of questions of opposition MPs regarding the meeting with the Special Representative of Turkey Serdar Kilic on January 14. 

According to Rubinyan, in the history of Armenia, negotiations with Turkey took place under all presidents․ "And in different formats, under Levon Ter-Petrosyan, under Robert Kocharyan, under Serzh Sargsyan. And what do you think, what percent of these negotiations was secret and what was open? It was more secret than open. For example, the football diplomacy, dear colleagues, the public part of which began during the presidency of Serzh Sargsyan, do you think that the non-public part of this process began during the presidency of Serzh Sargsyan? No, the beginning was laid during the presidency of Robert Kocharyan. The question is whether there were secret processes between Armenia and Turkey and why during the presidency of Robert Kocharyan it wasn't made public? 

Since the establishment of independence, and since Turkey closed its borders with Armenia, its position has always been that they advocate the establishment of relations without preconditions and the opening of borders, Deputy Speaker of the NA Hakob Arshakyan stated this at the National Assembly, referring to the question of the MP from the "Armenia" (Hayastan) faction Agnesa Khamoyan.

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