- Mr. Ambassador, it’s over two years Your are in Armenia, how do You feel Yourself in Armenia?

- These have been wonderful two years and it has been a great experience for me and my wife. My wife is now back in the States, as there are some medical issues with our grandson, but we really enjoyed our two years in Armenia, we had very valuable and fulfilling time in here. What we like about it is it’s a country, of course, with many challenges, regional and domestic challenges, that makes it interesting. There are also many opportunities, wonderful people, talented people, who are doing their best to make this country as successful as possible. And I want to be a port of that. The Embassy is doing its best to be a part of that, to work, to promote the good things about Armenia and where we see some shortcomings, challenges, we try to be helpful to promote corrections. So that balance of challenges and opportunities plus wonderful people that make it great to us.

- As an ordinary citizen, what are the issues that You have come across here and what are the things that You would like to see addressed?

- Well, I think that I have left my private life back in Washington and I am not sure I have much private life here. And I try not to speak as a private citizen, but only a representative of the U.S. Government. On the political side, of course, there are human rights issues, there are issues with corruption and transparency. We have just issued human rights report on these questions. So I hope that the Armenian people, and the civil society, and the press, and the government authorities, political parties, will read that report and will see where they can do better.

But where there are problems in addition to being frank in our assessment publicly we also try to be supportive on the independence of the judiciary, election reforms, transparency, and anti-corruption. We are trying to find partners here and work with partners here to encourage and promote improvement in those areas. So again we try to balance our criticism, frankly it is a criticism, with support and encouragement. I think our biggest success, accomplishment in last two and half years has been in deepening and improving our bilateral economic, trade, and investment relationship. And Armenia has improved the business climate. There is still work to do in that areas certainly, but Armenia has improved its business climate to encourage more western investment.

I have seen many new investments in the area of information technology, computers, telecommunications, and I am confident they will continue. In tourism in hotels a couple of new U.S. hotels have opened up recently in Yerevan and outside of Yerevan. And very importantly we were able to announce last month the signing of a very important energy deal, the hydro deal, between Contour Global Company and the Republic of Armenia on Vorotan Hydro Plant. A very important U.S. investment, the biggest, if I am not wrong.

- Though You mentioned about the economic cooperation I would like You  just to elaborate more on this and speaking about the U.S.-Armenian relations what do You think of these relations because Armenian authorities take the U.S. relations as at the highest level  and also in addition to economic cooperation what are the other areas that You are working?

As we of course see, under bilateral relationship just the diplomatic relations you can measure a lot, I think, in terms of high level dialogue and visits. Secretary former Clinton visited twice: first time you had a Secretary here 18 years. And when Foreign Minister Nalbandyan met   the Secretary Kerry late last year, Secretary Kerry hopes to come here sometime too and we hope to get him here sometime in this year. But the substance of the relationship is more important than the visits and meetings. We had a very productive bilateral economic meeting in Washington late last year with those in November. And in December we had a very productive high level defense consultation. Our defense department sent high level officials here to be with your Minister of Defense and Deputy Minister of Defense on a bilateral defense consultation. Our goal is deepening the cooperation in economic sphere and also in security field. We have a strong security relationship, NATO has a strong security relationship with Armenia, that is important to us and I hope to Armenia as well. And we want to continue the dialogue around different questions.

A lot of people ask me what is our reaction to the present announcement that Armenia intends to join the Customs Union. Washington has been very clear that now than ever the United States wants to improve its relationship with Armenia and be a better partner. The President and Government of Armenia   are very clear that they want to continue their relationship with the European Union, the USA and the Eastern Partners.

- Is the forthcoming visit of the Secretary of State John Kerry regional? Could you please provide some details?

- I do not have any details on the visit. Kerry is very much interested in the region; he is promoting the improvement of the relations between Armenia and Turkey. The visit will be regional.

- Mr. Ambassador, you have already touched the issue, I wanted to highlight. I was going to refer to the speech of the Secretary of State John Kerry at the US Senate, where he mentioned that the Armenian-Turkish normalization is one of the issues that are on the agenda of the US foreign policy. Now what expectations could we have when Turkey is speaking about the relations bringing forward the preconditions and raising the issue of the third country?

- The former Secretary of State Clinton played quite an important role in the protocol negotiations and a very courageous decision of the presidents to agree to the signing of the protocols. And there are no preconditions in those protocols for Armenia or Turkey, or even for the third country. And we continue to push Turkey to implement the protocols without preconditions and we respect the fact that Armenia continues to keep the protocols on the book and does not withdraw the protocols. That’s very important that Armenia has maintained its patience, even it has been for four years now, to try to conclude this success. I will make the last point on that. One thing I have learnt about Secretary Kerry is that he is not satisfied with the status-quo. He does not believe that any conflict is too complicated to be solved. He has progressed in any conflict. And that’s why he has personally taken the lead of the two most intractable issues in our foreign policy. It is Iran nuclear issue and the Middle East peace process and the Palestinian negotiations. There is also push for all the regional issues – Nagorno Karabakh, Armenia-Turkey, any regional issues and challenges – he is pushing us to push the parties, that’s you – Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan – to push for improvement and the reconciliation process of Armenia-Turkey and the unrelated question of Nagorno Karabakh negotiations, Minsk Group and Azerbaijan-Armenia. So thus you see that we are under the instructions from the Secretary Kerry and Washington pushing the parties for compromise.

- We will speak about the Karabakh issue later. Now I have a question about the Armenian-Turkish relations. Next year is the centennial of the Armenian Genocide and the US is unique in the sense that every year on the Remembrance Day a statement is made by the US president and we appreciate it very much. But those countries, which do not recognize and condemn the Genocide, do not they contribute with this to other genocides?

- The president’s statement, as you said, is a very important one. I am glad you recognize it and appreciate it. And in these statements, since he has been president, he does not deny any of the facts, the facts are clear. 1.5 million Armenians massacred or marched to their deaths, and one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. So that’s the fundamental position that we recognize the facts, we are not disputing any of the facts, we acknowledge and there are condolences and condemnation of the facts. The precise words that are used are policy decisions that the President in Washington will make and that decision comes from Washington and we’ll see if the language evolves over the next few years. I can’t predict whether it will. I don’t know.

- Recently the LA city council recognized the independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. This is not the first time the cities or states of the United States have recognized it? So, what is the importance of this kind of things? Will this eventually have an impact on the US decision as a country to recognize the Nagorno Karabakh?

- We have a federal system of governance and city councils and states make proclamations and pass resolutions on different issues. And the federal government is not involved in those resolutions or proclamations. There is also a separation of powers between the courts and Congress and the executive branches. And we try to maintain that separation as a part of our Constitution. So, sometimes it is complicated to assess who is doing what in our complicated system. I am focused on the executive branch, which does what the president and the secretary of state tell me to do. But I want to deal a little bit with the substance of your question. In the Nagorno Karabakh negotiations we want and are deeply committed to peaceful resolution. As one of the three Minsk Group co-chairs, we have been pushing for 18 years for the peace resolution. And the outline of the deal is pretty clearly laid out in the public documents, which the MG co-chairs have agreed to. Because the two countries should come to a compromise and define a peace resolution. The status-quo is not acceptable by anybody. And when you look at it more broadly, the resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh will actually improve Armenia’s regional position. So I will repeat that the Ambassador James Warlick is our lead person on this, pushing very hard, pushing Armenia and Azerbaijan very hard. And again I hope that the Armenian people will understand the reason he is doing that and the reason the co-chairs are doing that to find a peaceful resolution getting everybody involved.

- Mr. Ambassador, You mentioned for several times about the peaceful resolution, peaceful negotiations. Living in Armenia and getting acquainted with the situation closer, can we consider it a peaceful situation, when the ceasefire regime is constantly being violated and it’s only one side that violates the ceasefire regime and casualties are recorded on the border? Is it right to speak about peaceful resolutions and peaceful negotiations in this situation?

- That’s exactly why “status quo” is unacceptable and exactly why we are pushing so hard for all parties to be creative and find the peaceful resolution of this to solve the problem once and for all. And the Co-Chairs’ statements at the presidential level have been very clear condemning all violations, military rhetoric, destabilizing arms purchases, all of which we think make more difficult to find that peaceful resolution we are all trying to find.

- Mr. Ambassador, it seems to me You have partially answered my next question. Before and after the meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the two countries in Paris, the Azerbaijani President again made bellicose statements and spoke about his desire to conquer Karabakh. Isn’t this today’s major problem and isn’t this standpoint of the neighboring country, which undermines the peaceful negotiations?

- As You know President Sargsyan and President Aliyev met in Vienna in November and both Presidents reported publicly and privately that the atmosphere in that meeting was better, than it has been for a long time. And so we are trying to build on that slight improvement in atmosphere for future meetings of Foreign Ministers and the Presidents with the Co-Chairs and without the Co-Chairs. You are sure right that violations and military rhetoric does make the prospect for the resolution more difficult, absolutely. That’s why the Co-Chairs have been so clear in their statements publicly and privately that it’s time to move behind that kind of rhetoric, beyond those violations, to find the solution that everybody can accept for the benefits of all.

Interview by Hasmik Harutyunyan