US and Armenia Reach Strategic Partnership Agreement

Strategic Partnership Agreement: The United States and Armenia signed the Charter on Strategic Partnership the day before. The document was signed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan.

According to Blinken, the commission created within the framework of the Charter lays the foundation for expanding bilateral cooperation in a number of key areas, including economic issues, security and defense, democracy and justice.

The US Secretary of State also emphasized that the document will help strengthen Armenia's sovereignty.

In turn, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan noted that Yerevan and Washington have reached a level of partnership that is of decisive importance in the context of complex international relations. He announced the start of negotiations on an agreement on cooperation with the United States in the nuclear sphere, and also said that Armenia intends to join the global coalition against the extremist group ISIS.

Let us recall that earlier the Armenian government approved a bill on initiating accession to the European Union.

As observers note, in recent years, an unstable geopolitical situation has developed around Armenia and the region as a whole. There are disagreements in bilateral relations with Russia, but Yerevan continues to depend on Moscow in the energy and trade sectors, and, albeit formally, remains its military ally. At the same time, as experts note, there are more and more people in Armenia who advocate diversification of foreign policy, and fewer and fewer who want to return to the dependence on Russia in the security sector that existed before the recent events around Nagorno-Karabakh.

The significance of the Charter should be considered both in terms of Yerevan’s interests and in the regional aspect, writer and journalist Mark Grigoryan said in a commentary for the Russian Service of the Voice of America . According to him, this document has a long-term goal.

“It is capable of strengthening the influence of the United States in the region, where a difficult situation has developed,” he noted. “Official Yerevan is today under serious pressure not only from Baku and Ankara, although Turkey plays more of a second fiddle here. This is the pressure that is visible to the naked eye. At the same time, Yerevan has also come under strong pressure from Moscow. This pressure is not obvious, but it is felt constantly. In Russia, at various levels, they tirelessly repeat: try to leave us, it will be worse for you…”

In addition, this agreement should be considered from the point of view of domestic political processes in Armenia, Mark Grigoryan emphasized: “Nobody in the country is talking about this loudly yet. But in a little less than a year and a half, we will have parliamentary elections. And the Charter is one of the steps of the ruling party aimed at affirming Armenia’s pro-Western orientation. This course is opposed by the opposition, which takes a pro-Moscow position. And here the big question is what ordinary citizens of Armenia think and how they feel about this – those who will have to vote. There are a lot of pitfalls here.”

The writer expressed concerns that there are so many problems in this regard that it will be very difficult to calculate all the factors and risks, equally for both the authorities and the opposition.

The Charter on Strategic Partnership itself cannot solve any specific problems or provide unambiguous guarantees to the parties that signed it, believes Boris Dolgin, a visiting researcher at the Center for Eastern Studies at the University of Tartu.

However, in his opinion, the document is a sign of an increasingly confident choice of direction for Armenia to move in, and it should be considered in the context of the government’s approval of the bill on the beginning of the process of joining the European Union.

“At the same time, the willingness to accept and support this choice on the part of Western partners really strengthens Yerevan’s position, although it causes understandable irritation in Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey – despite all the differences in the positions of the authorities of these states,” he explained in a commentary to the Russian Service of the Voice of America. “This irritation can be seen both in the radicalization of Baku’s rhetoric, which is forced to take into account the more diverse structure of its neighbor’s political and military security system, and in the reactions of Russian officials and propagandists – from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the announcer of Vesti Nedeli.”

At the same time, the Armenian leadership is trying not to take too drastic steps, continuing to talk about the importance of Russian-Armenian cooperation and the reluctance to leave the EAEU, Boris Dolgin stated: "But the logic of the country's interests is pushing it to curtail formats that are ineffective in terms of ensuring national security - such as the CSTO - and to develop new ties in addition to those that already exist. Thus, ongoing cooperation with Rosatom structures is combined with discussions of interaction with the United States in the field of nuclear energy. If the Armenian NPP remains in the service area of ​​Russian nuclear scientists, then the situation regarding the status of the future new station may well turn out to be different."

The statements coming from Moscow about the incompatibility of Armenia's simultaneous membership in the EU and the EAEU are reminiscent of the Kremlin's persistent warnings to the Ukrainian leadership in 2013 about the inadmissibility of signing an association agreement with the EU, the expert also noted. These situations differ from each other in many ways, but the Russian leadership's unwillingness to think about compromise structures, which forces their partners to make an unambiguous choice, remains the same, he concluded.



The signed document is quite symbolic, in turn, believes Radio Liberty journalist and Echo of the Caucasus editorial board Vadim Dubnov. According to him, with this act, Yerevan fills "those gaps that have formed on its foreign policy front."

"Because, on the one hand, Armenia would really like to distance itself from Russia as much as possible on many issues, and on the other hand, which is much more important, Moscow is increasingly openly siding with Baku in the peace process," the Voice of America interlocutor added. – And here Yerevan, it seems, willy-nilly has to agree to make this process increasingly bilateral.”

In addition, Armenia needs to maintain bridges with the West, and Yerevan is displaying this desire in the form of initiating movement toward the European Union and a strategic partnership with the United States, Vadim Dubnov continued: “In my opinion, these are only signs for now. Because, for example, everything that may look like the content of a partnership (with the United States) could well have been implemented without such an agreement – ​​the same investments or assistance in the field of nuclear energy. Such symbolic acts are required to indicate which club you are in. Therefore, the United States has a strategic partnership with Kazakhstan, Armenia – with Georgia, and so on. This is simply a way to demonstrate loyalty to one or another axis that is being formed in this world.”

From Baku’s point of view, this act will have exactly the meaning that Azerbaijan itself will try to give it, the journalist asserts. “Because it is important for Azerbaijan to isolate Armenia from the West as much as possible, to prevent possible support from the West. At the same time, it seems to me that Baku does not have a clear vision of what to do next in the Armenian direction,” he concluded.

Yerevan’s recent policy has caused rejection and sometimes undisguised irritation in Russia. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has repeatedly accused Russian TV channels that continue to broadcast in the republic of interfering in the country’s internal affairs and wanting to destabilize the political situation.



The zeal of pro-Kremlin propaganda leads to diplomatic scandals. Last Wednesday, the Armenian Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to the carpet and handed him a note of protest over a recent episode of the Vesti Nedeli program hosted by Dmitry Kiselev. According to diplomats, Kiselev voiced “artificially generated narratives aimed against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the republic.” The Armenian authorities were outraged by a story dedicated to Yerevan’s relations with Baku.



Propagandist Kiselev was obviously ordered from above to sting Armenia more painfully, so he tried his best, Mark Grigoryan suggested. “My nerves can’t stand watching such propaganda programs,” he admitted. “There are no rational points in them. I don’t think that such behavior is beneficial to Russia. They apparently don’t understand that with such steps they are further alienating Armenia from themselves. Russia's reaction to the signing of the charter and the first steps towards joining the EU is simply inadequate."

In the context of recent events, Yerevan could not help but react to such things from Russia Yerevan, Vadim Dubnov reasons. "Because this is an unconditional attack, an insult, an absolutely conscious demarche by Moscow towards Armenia. But Yerevan has no opportunity to respond symmetrically, so it has given this the character of a diplomatic scandal, which is understandable from a political point of view," he concluded.

Armenia has allowed the termination of the broadcast of "Vesti Nedeli" in the country. This is already becoming common practice. In 2024, Armenia blocked the broadcast of propagandist Vladimir Solovyov's "Evening" programs. Earlier, the license of the pro-Kremlin radio station "Sputnik Armenia" was revoked for a month.