ARF in Armenia Voices Concern over Turkey’s Meddling to US Ambassador

ARF Bureau members Giro Manoyan and Armen Rustamyan, and Supreme Council Representative Aghvan Vardanyan met with U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills and Deputy Chief of Political/Economic Section at the U.S. Embassy Ruben Harutyunyan on May 3

YEREVAN (Armenpress)—U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills and Deputy Chief of Political/Economic Section at the U.S. Embassy Ruben Harutyunyan met with representatives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation leadership at the ARF Supreme Council headquarters on Thursday. ARF Bureau members Armen Rustamyan, Giro Manoyan and Supreme Council Representative Aghvan Vardanyan addressed issues of concerns with the US representatives.

Manoyan said that the meeting was held on their initiative, and when the invitation was sent to the Embassy, the military operations by Azerbaijan had not started yet. He added that the military operations changed the agenda and the meeting was mainly focused on the developments in Nagorno-Karabakh. “We expressed our expectations from the international community, Minsk Group Co-chairs, saying that things must be called in their real names,” Manoyan said.

The ARF members conveyed their concerns over Turkish negative involvement in regional affairs, as well as possible developments with Turkey’s participation.

The sides touched upon the Republican Party of Armenia and Armenian Revolutionary Federation cooperation, the position of the ARF on the new draft electoral code and reforms in electoral sphere, as well as possible U.S. support to those initiatives.

U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills told that the reinforcement of the 1994 ceasefire agreement reconfirmed in 2016 is a priority issue for the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs at the moment. He also fixed importance to taking confidence-building measures and returning to the negotiation table.

Referring to the U.S. support to reform the electoral system, Ambassador Mills stated that the USA has always supported and will continue to support strengthening democracy in Armenia, including such electoral systems that will be trusted by the people. The Ambassador stated that both the authorities and the opposition have much to do in that regard.

The sides agreed to meet more often.