Senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, professor at Georgetown University Paul Stronski addressed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan via Twitter with the requirement of strengthening Armenia's pro-American vector in foreign policy. He recalled that Washington has paid Yerevan already $25 million with thus purpose.
"Pashinyan should get down to work and stop playing politics with U.S. U.S. was highly critical of Kocharian and Sargsian in 2008; it pulled MCC funding for key road project because Armenia failed key democratic indicator (March 2008). That was big deal," Stronski recalled in the first place.
"Pashiniyan's recent criticism that U.S. has done nothing to support Armenia since 2018 Velvet revolution is simply not true. U.S. increased its assistance significantly to the country after the transfer of power. Unlike the EU, which pledges money, but delivers slowly, $14 million in additional assistance flowed into Armenia from U.S. within 6 months. In fact, U.S. provided over $25 million to Armenia last year. That is on top of over $1 billion in U.S. assistance to Armenia since 1992," the professor at Georgetown University revealed.
He stressed that that is a lot of money, but US is readying to provide more, especially once Pashiniyan's government "makes its policy priorities and action plans clear." "U.S. understands Armenian interests in Syria because of diaspora. But Armenian deployment of deminers to Syria along side Russia is a big deal to the U.S.," he wrote, adding that U.S. trained those deminers, as part of long-standing US support to demining in Armenia.
"There seemed to be no messaging strategy to West, nor did there appear to be an understanding of how this would appear to Armenia's European and North American partners. The U.S.-Armenia relationship is strong, and this is an unforced error. But, Pashiniyan has work to do and he should do it, instead of blaming the U.S.," Paul Stronski concluded.
The Pashinyan administration has not yet responded to this criticism and disclosure on Washington’s financial investments in new Yerevan.
