French parliamentarian:

NKR National Assembly Speaker Ashot Ghulyan received four members of France's parliament who visited Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday. The speaker welcomed the guests and highlighted the importance of France's mediation in resolution of the Karabakh conflict. The delegation led by Guy Teissier, chairman of the French National Assembly's committee on national defense, comprises also Jacques Remiller, Georges Colombier, and Valerie Boyer, ArmInfo's correspondent to Stepanakert reported.

Ashot Ghulyan stressed that over the last years the French parliamentarians have paid several visits to NKR which promotes cooperation with the Karabakh parliamentarians.

For his part, Teissier said: "Coming to Armenia is a gesture of friendship. Coming to Karabakh is a gesture of solidarity." The senior lawmaker, who is affiliated with France's ruling Union for the Popular Movement (UMP) party, said that Karabakh had been incorporated into Soviet Azerbaijan "at the whim of a dictator" and that its predominantly Armenian population should be able to determine its status.

"Why would we keep silent and not say that people very deeply rooted in this land have the right to live here?" added Teissier.

Jacques Remiller, another UMP deputy and the mayor of the French city of Vienne, also voiced "great sympathy" for the Karabakh Armenian cause. The parliamentarians declared that visiting Karabakh they learn the core of the conflict.

"France wants peaceful resolution of the conflict," Teissier said. Ashot Ghulyan thanked the French parliamentarians for open talk and came out for further cooperation.

The French lawmakers are scheduled to tour on Tuesday several Karabakh villages and meet with leaders of local non-governmental organizations uniting Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan.