Armenia parliament receives Valentina Matviyenko's letter regarding Alen Simonyan's remarks

The National Assembly (NA) of Armenia has received the letter by the chairperson of the Federation Council of Russia, Valentina Matviyenko. The NA speaker's press secretary, Nelly Ghulyan, informed Armenian News-NEWS.am about this.

But she did not specify the content of this letter.

As reported earlier, Matviyenko on Wednesday had instructed the Russian senators to prepare and send an inquiry to the Armenian parliament "in connection with the anti-Russian statements" of its speaker, Alen Simonyan,

At the Spain Conference of Speakers of the European Union Parliaments, Simonyan had stated, in particular, that considering that "the core of the conference is Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East," he wants to confirm that Armenia "resolutely supports the territorial integrity Ukraine, as well as Moldova, Georgia, Cyprus, and all other countries."

"I want to ask my colleague, the president of the Armenian parliament, on whose behalf did he make such statements? Certainly not on behalf of the Armenian people, with whom Russia has centuries-old friendship. We cannot ignore such anti-Russian speeches. I would send a written inquiry to the Armenian parliament to ask on whose behalf he spoke and whether the Armenian parliament agrees with the assessments made during that meeting," had said the chairperson of the Russian Federation Council.

And Alen Simonyan on Thursday responded to Valentina Matviyenko, stating: "She talks about the friendship of the Armenian people and the Russian people on April 24 [i.e. the Armenian Genocide anniversary], without even referring to the Armenian Genocide in a single sentence. (…).I want to know: is the force only upon us? No. The problem is that they do not understand that Armenia should act as an independent state. They do not think that Armenia is an independent state. According to their perception, we [Armenia] have remained an outlying province. (…). What made them nervous? Let the inquiry come, let's see what they wrote."