YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. The issue of the meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and US President Donald Trump is on the discussion agenda with the State Department partners, Armenian Ambassador to the US Grigor Hovhannisyan said in an interview to the Orakarg program of the Public TV of Armenia, Armenpress reports.

“We are discussing with our partners of the State Department the possibilities to hold prime minister Pashinyan-president Trump meeting within a short period of time, and this issue is on the agenda”, the Ambassador said.

He also commented on the rumors according to which Armenia’s first deputy prime minister Ararat Mirzoyan during his US trip asked the Democratic Congressmen to organize the meeting of president Trump and PM Pashinyan. The Ambassador said this is a disinformation.

“I want to inform that Ararat Mirzoyan met with both the Democrats and Republicans. During the meetings they informed that they are going to do such a demarche, something that has been done before. In other words, the legislative applies to the presidential staff encouraging to hold such meeting. Fake comment is impermissible here. The initiative comes from the Congressmen”, Ambassador Hovhannisyan said.  

In response to the question according to which there are rumors that a decision was made to block the possible entry of the Millennium Challenge program to Armenia after Mirzoyan’s US visit, the Ambassador said that decision was made before Mirzoyan’s visit to the US.

“Unfortunately, I must state that Armenia should not be considered as a beneficiary country by the Millennium Challenge Corporation for 2018-2019. The decision was made by the World Bank based on the studies of the technical data which enabled to rank Armenia as a country with a high average income, which, according to the existing criteria, doesn’t allow to include Armenia in that program. The decision was unexpected, it was adopted in early July. I would like to add that it was unexpected both for us and our partners of the State Department. The decision was adopted two weeks before the first deputy PM’s visit, it has nothing to do with the results of his visit”, the Armenian Ambassador said, adding that during the first deputy PM’s visit the additional opportunities which will allow to keep the agenda of the two countries without the Millennium Challenge program were discussed.

The Ambassador also commented on rumors in social networks according to which the Armenian first deputy PM initiated non-scheduled meetings and participated in them.

“The symmetric meetings in inter-state relations are an accepted order, but the meeting only on equal levels cannot move forward the inter-state relations. I can state that at this transitional stage, after the approval of the Trump administration, our relations have not been so symmetrical. For instance, Armenia’s president and prime minister received US deputy secretaries of state, but despite this, during these years our relations have been maintained at a high level. As for Ararat Mirzoyan’s visit, he was in New York to present Armenia’s report, using the chance, an opportunity was given to invite to Washington D.C. to hold several important meetings to inform about the changes in Armenia”, he said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan