Outgoing Armenian parliament convenes for final session

YEREVAN, July 30. /ARKA/. The outgoing Armenian parliament has convened today for the last extraordinary session today at the initiative of the lawmakers and based on a decision of the Council of the National Assembly.

The agenda of the meeting includes amendments to the law "On road transport" and a number of related laws, "On state borders" and "Administrative offenses", the Code of Administrative Procedure, the Land Code, the Criminal Code and the law "On higher and postgraduate education".

After the aggravation of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on July 28, some opposition MPs called on Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan to hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss the situation on the border.

However, Mirzoyan who is on vacation did not respond. Today’s session is being chaired by Vice-Speaker Alen Simonyan, who, according to some media reports, will be elected as speaker of the new Armenian parliament on August 2, when it is scheduled to hold its maiden session.

In one of the deadliest shootout since the end of the 44-day war in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone last autumn, three Armenian soldiers were been killed and several others were wounded on July 28 morning.

Later that day both sides accepted a Russian ceasefire proposal to try to calm tensions.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry accused Azerbaijani side of deliberately escalating the situation as its forces remain illegally on Armenia’s sovereign territory. -0-