President Sargsyan meets Pope in Rome. The Holy Father accepted an invitation to visit Armenia in 2015.

The head of the Catholic Church, Pope  Francis, on Friday received the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan at an audience in the Vatican.

During the meeting, President Sargsyan formally invited the Pope to visit Armenia in 2015. His Holiness accepted the invitation with pleasure, adding that he was looking forward to the visit.

Serzh Sargsyan later met with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. They discussed the current level and prospects for development  of relations between Armenia and the Vatican State. They also discussed problems related to Christian communities in the Middle East.

Sources close to the Armenian President said that during the meeting the issue of the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was also discussed. The Armenian  President thanked the Vatican Secretary of State for the balanced approach of the Holy See on the matter.

source: commonspace.eu with agencies

photo: President Sargsyan with Pope  Francis, at the Vatican on Friday, 19 September 2014 (picture courtesy opf the Press Service of the President of Armenia.)

Related articles

Editor's choice
News
Despite crisis, Lebanon takes the lead to become first country in the Middle East to abolish the death penalty

Despite crisis, Lebanon takes the lead to become first country in the Middle East to abolish the death penalty

Lebanon's parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, a move that would make it the first country in the Middle East to formally end capital punishment. A majority of MPs in the 128-seat parliament backed the measure on Tuesday (11 August), while Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc voted against it. The legislation will now go to the cabinet before being passed to President Joseph Aoun for signing. The government has already expressed its support for the measure. Lebanon has not carried out an execution since January 2004, although courts have continued to hand down death sentences. Rights groups estimate that more than 78 people remain on death row. Under the new legislation, capital punishment will be replaced with life imprisonment with hard labour. However, the legislation does not yet set out in detail how the new sentence would be enforced. Hard labour is already written into Lebanese law but has rarely been implemented in recent years. The country's financial crisis and overcrowded prisons have limited the authorities' resources and capacity. The latest legislation follows years of campaigning by civil society groups and lawyers for the removal of capital punishment from Lebanese law. (click image to read more)

Popular

Editor's choice
Interview
Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov

Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov

Today, commonspace.eu starts a new regular weekly series. THURSDAY INTERVIEW, conducted by Lauri Nikulainen, will host  persons who are thinkers, opinion shapers, and implementors in their countries and spheres. We start the series with an interview with Murad Muradov, a leading person in Azerbaijan's think tank community. He is also the first co-chair of the Action Committee for a new Armenian-Azerbaijani Dialogue. Last September he made history by being the first Azerbaijani civil society activist to visit Armenia after the 44 day war, and the start of the peace process. Speaking about this visit Murad Muradov said: "My experience was largely positive. My negative expectations luckily didn’t play out. The discussions were respectful, the panel format bringing together experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey was particularly valuable during the NATO Rose-Roth Seminar in Yerevan, and media coverage, while varied in tone, remained largely constructive. Some media outlets though attempted to represent me as more of a government mouthpiece than an independent expert, which was totally misleading.  Overall, I see these initiatives as important steps in rebuilding trust and normalising professional engagement. The fact that soon a larger Azerbaijani civil society visits to Armenia followed, reinforces the sense that this process is moving in the right direction." (click the image to read the interview in full)