Crimean officials in the same raw with Alen Simonyan: The National Assembly was not aware

The official Facebook page of the National Assembly issued a press release that “On April 6, the President of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen Simonyan took part in the event dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Armenian-Russian diplomatic relations organized by the “House Moscow” Cultural and Business Center”.

Photos of the event show that it was attended by President of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen Simoyan and other high-ranking Armenian officials, as well as the Russian Ambassador to Armenia, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Crimea Georgy Muradov and another Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea, Minister of Finance Irina Kiviko.

Crimea is an autonomous republic, which the Russian Federation considers a part of its territory since 2014. The vast majority of UN member states do not recognize the annexation of Crimea to Russia and consider it the territory of Ukraine. Crimea has not been recognized as part of Russia by Armenia either.

Information emerged about the arrival of the Crimean delegation to Armenia a few days ago. On April 1, Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Georgy Muradov told the Russian state-run TASS news agency that Days of Crimea event would be held in Yerevan in the coming days. “In the coming days, we will have Days of Crimea in Armenia. They are waiting for us there. Тhe public is interested in everything that is happening in Crimea. Meetings of Crimean and Armenian businesses, public meetings, speeches, conferences, performances of our creative groups will be held. These are full-fledged events.”

On April 2, the Armenian press also reported on the visit.

Mediamax reports that the organizer of the “Days of Crimea” in Armenia is Hayk Babukhanyan, Chairman of the Union for Constitutional Law Party, leader of the Friends of Crimea Club.

The Fact Investigation Platform contacted Alen Simonyan’s spokesperson to find out whether the President of the National Assembly of Armenia had been aware of the list of participants in advance and whether Simonyan had been informed that high-ranking officials of the Republic of Crimea, not recognized by Armenia, would sit in the same row with him.

The Spokesperson for the President of the National Assembly Tsovinar Khachatryan informed that the President was not aware of the presence of the representatives from Crimea. According to Khachatryan, Simonyan was invited to the event by the “House of Moscow” Center. “The Staff of the President of the National Assembly was informed in advance only that the Russian Ambassador to Armenia would sit next to Mr. Simonyan. All the issues related to who the participants would be and where they would sit were coordinated by the organizers of the event,” the spokesperson said.

By the way, the official statement of the National Assembly states that the event with the participation of Alen Simonyan took place on April 6, while the press release on the Facebook page of the “House of Moscow” states that the event took place on April 5, and the Russian TASS reported on the event on April 5.

Mher Taroyan