Visit of Ruling Party and British MPs to Goris Kept Secret: 'Hraparak'

'Hraparak' newspaper reports that the President of the National Assembly, Alen Simonian, has signed an order for the head of the National Assembly’s Permanent Commission on Foreign Relations, Edward Aghajanyan, ruling party MPs Maria Karapetyan and Sargis Khandanian, as well as several employees of the National Assembly’s staff to go on a business trip to Goris on April 2-3, which are non-working days. The order was signed on April 1 and was published on the parliament's official website yesterday, April 5.

Additionally, the order includes a mandatory condition to specify the purpose of the trip, as well as the event in which the MPs will participate. However, the aforementioned order only specifies a 'working visit'.

We have learned that the MPs did not travel to Goris alone; they were accompanied by representatives from the British Parliament, members of the Armenian-British friendship group, whose visit to Syunik is also being kept secret. We could not find information about it on the Syunik regional administration's page, yet, according to our sources, regional governor Robert Ghukasyan personally welcomed them.

It is noteworthy that the legislators who went to Goris did not meet with the local community leadership. Sources informed us that they visited border communities and surveyed the area. They also mentioned that the Armenian and British delegations met with several officials from Artsakh at one of Goris' hotels, but we will try to find out who exactly they met.

We reached out to the speaker of the National Assembly for details about the visit, but he stated that he was not aware and directed us to the MPs who went on the trip, who did not respond to our calls.

For more details, see today’s issue of the newspaper.