Basque Country’s ruling party ready for cooperation with Nagorno-Karabakh
The Foreign Minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Mr Karen Mirzoyan, met with representatives of the Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco, PNV).
The PNV is the ruling party in the Basque Country and has been in office most of the time, for over 30 years, ever since Spain regained its democracy in 1978.
During his visit to the Basque Country, Mr. Mirzoyan, along with Mr. Lorenzo Ochoa, had the chance to meet and discuss issues of common interest with distinguished members of the PNV administration, including the ministers of education and culture as well as environment and territorial administration.
Both Mr Mirzoyan and Mr Lorenzo Ochoa were invited to participate in a meeting at the party headquarters in Bilbao with the PNV faction leader in the Spanish parliament, Aitor Esteban Bravo and Inaki Goikoetxeta, responsible for foreign relations at the PNV and a member of the party executive board.
The meeting was opened by Mr Goikoetxeta who praised EuFoA for its key role in providing information about Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to the PNV, both through its website as well as through facilitating the meeting.
"This has been a first step to meet here and get to know each other. We're (geographically) far away from each other, but we share some common grounds and I hope that in the near future collaboration can be developed between us," said Mr Esteban, who has visited Armenia in the past.
Mr Esteban, who welcomed Mr Mizoryan alongside European Friends of Armenia's Mr Lorenzo Ochoa, spoke confidently about future visits between the Basque Country, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
According to both representatives, the Basque Country is the EU region with the highest degree of self-governance, including external action, an area in which both showed their interest in reaching concrete cooperation agreements in different areas with Nagorno-Karabakh.