O'Brien's visit to Yerevan: The United States supports Armenia, which is close to signing peace with Azerbaijan

A meeting of the Armenia-USA Strategic Dialogue is taking place in Yerevan. U.S. Undersecretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien, who spoke at the event, welcomed the steps taken by the Armenian government to combat corruption, democratic development and the rule of law. "We also support efforts to establish lasting peace and work to expand economic opportunities from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. If there is lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, these opportunities will be wider," O'Brien said.

"Today, our countries will sign an agreement on the exchange of information in the customs sphere, which will open up new opportunities for trade and facilitate trade for businesses in the coming years. This is part of the promises that we talked about in Brussels,” the US Deputy Secretary of State said. “We will continue to work in the field of justice reform. We will also continue to work on defense and security issues. Our first joint military exercises took place last year, and we are waiting for more. We expect to work in the areas of cyber-security, borders, energy, and food security. We are ready to support Armenia. Our plan is to replace this Strategic Dialogue with a commission on strategic partnership, which will allow us to achieve greater depth of cooperation,” he stressed.

A day earlier, during O'Brien's meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, the latter said that “Armenia is committed to the process of normalization of relations with Azerbaijan and demarcation of the state border on the basis of mutual recognition of territorial integrity on the basis of the Alma Ata Declaration. There is a real opportunity, a historic moment for finalizing the draft peace treaty, the signing of which can open a new door for long-term peace in the region,” Mirzoyan said.  He also added that Armenia is also very interested in unblocking all regional communications based on the principles of sovereignty, full respect for jurisdiction, equality and reciprocity.