The Minister congratulated the ambassador on his appointment and wished him good luck in his mission. He continued by noting how much Armenia appreciated the activity of the EU representation in the South Caucasus, and specifically the valuable work of Ambassasdor Heikki Talvitie, the first EU representative.

During the lengthy discussion, Minister Oskanian and Ambassador Semneby exchanged views on a vast range of issues relating to regional cooperation, conflict settlement, and Armenia-EU relations.

They discused the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement process at length. In this regard, Minister Oskanian presented Ambassador Semneby with recent developments, as well as Armenia's approach to the process of negotiations.

The Minister and the Ambassador also touched on the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan with Armenia, as well as on some aspects of Armenian-Turkish relations.

A joint press conference followed the meeting.

Minister Oskanian and Ambassador Semneby continued their talks over lunch, together with Fokion Fotiadis, the European Commission's Deputy Director of the Directorate General for External Relations.

Ambassador Peter Semneby was born in 1959. He was educated at the Stockholm School of Economics, University of Uppsala, University of Stockholm, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His most recent assignment was as Head of the OSCE Mission to Croatia between 2002 and 2005. From 2000 to 2002, he was Head of the OSCE Mission to Latvia. He was responsible for European Security and Defense Policy in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1997 to 2000. Earlier, he had served at the Swedish embassies in Germany, Ukraine and the USSR, and was a member of the OSCE Mission to Georgia in 1992. In addition to his native Swedish, Ambassador Semneby speaks English, French, German, Russian and Croatian/Serbian.