Armenian delegation in USA in framework of Kansas partnership

YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS:In the framework of the Armenia-Kansas State Cooperation Program the Armenian delegation left for the United States. As reported by Armenpress, quoting the official website of The Topeka Capital Journal, the visit aims at getting acquainted with the Kansas legal system.

Sergey Abrahamyan, the head of the International Legal Provision Branch and deputy head of Defense Policy Department in Armenia, spoke to media members at the Kansas National Guard complex. Abrahamyan and three other Armenian officials are in Kansas this week as part of an ongoing exchange program. This visit focuses on the Kansas legal system.

Kansas has partnered with Armenia since 2003 as part of a program for states to exchange military, technical and other types of knowledge in areas where the United States has an interest. Most of exchanges are with countries in Eastern Europe, central Asia, Southeast Asia, South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

A team of Kansas National Guard members visited Armenia, a small country in the mountainous region between Russia, Turkey and Iran, earlier this year to teach soldiers there about first aid and battlefield medicine. Armenians still face danger from land mines leftover from their six-year war with neighboring Azerbaijan during and after the break-up of the former Soviet Union about 20 years ago.

The two countries have never signed a peace treaty, but the United States has relations with both, and National Guard members from Oklahoma have exchanges with the Azerbaijanis.

Armenia is examining the legal systems in America and several European countries to find the best practices for reforming its own system, Abrahamyan said.

“Making the changes in the legal field, this is the basis of making changes in the other fields,” he said. “It is about the freedom of human beings.”

The Armenians arrived Saturday and will depart Friday. They met with Kansas Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli, members of Joint Forces Headquarters staff and Gov. Sam Brownback. They also are scheduled to visit the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. District Court in Topeka, Shawnee County Courthouse, the Military Discipline Barracks at Fort Leavenworth and the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department.

Tafanelli said the exchange benefits Kansas because the Armenian officials have a fresh perspective on the American system, causing the Americans to rethink whether the way things always have been done is the best way to do them.

“Many times we don’t reflect on the good or the bad of those systems,” he said.

By the initiative of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, in 2013 the ceremony dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Armenia-Kansas state cooperation program will be held in Armenia.