The President of the Republic, Vahagn Khachaturyan, had a farewell meeting with the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See in Armenia, Archbishop Jose Avelino Bettencourt. Welcoming the guest, the president thanked the nun for her activities during the mission.
“I would like to personally thank you for the development of relations between Armenia and the Vatican, and thanks to your efforts, we have always felt the support of the Pope and the Catholic Church,” President Khachaturyan said.
Thanking for the reception and warm words, Archbishop Jose Bettencourt noted that it was a great joy for him to be in Armenia these years and to work for closer relations between the Vatican and Armenia.
The regional realities and the rights protection and humanitarian problems of more than one hundred thousand Armenians forcibly displaced from Nagorno Karabakh were discussed during the meeting.
The President of the Republic drew the Archbishop’s attention to the issues of protection of Armenian and Christian thousand-year-old cultural heritage in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and stressed that only thanks to the active steps of the progressive society, organizations, and the Holy See, it will be possible to avoid atrocities and potential destruction of these monuments.
