EU Envoy Meets With Armenian President, Opposition

YEREVAN -- European Union envoy Peter Semneby was in Yerevan to meet with President Serzh Sarkisian and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrossian for the second time in a week.

Semneby, the EU's special representative to the South Caucasus, told RFE/RL's Armenian Service that his talks with Sarkisian and Ter-Petrossian focused on political developments in Armenia a year after the deadly March 1 unrest in Yerevan.

Sarkisian's office told RFE/RL that the Armenian president's meeting with Semneby on February 24 had an "informal character" that continued the dialogue at their previous meeting in Yerevan on February 18.

Ter-Petrossian's Armenian National Congress said in a statement that the opposition leader and Semneby discussed "ways of overcoming the internal political crisis."

It said Ter-Petrossian reaffirmed the opposition's readiness to negotiate with the authorities if they release all "political prisoners" and stop the year-long "persecution" of opposition members.