Photo: Swiss ex-president Micheline Calmy-Rey

YEREVAN, MAY 13, ARMENPRESS. Visiting members of the Global Leadership Foundation delegation say they are “fascinated” by the 2018 Armenian Velvet Revolution.

The delegation arrived to Armenia at the invitation of President Armen Sarkissian.

“Yesterday we met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we are planning to have meetings with other officials, the Speaker of Parliament, representatives of the civil society,” said Micheline Calmy-Rey, a former President of Switzerland, who is a member of the delegation.

“We are former officials who’ve been in Armenia on different occasions, so we all have information about the country, we all love the country, we are all fascinated by what you did. A peaceful revolution, where no one was killed, and now you are trying to build a truly wonderful democratic state. We are fascinated by this, and that is why we are here,” Micheline Calmy-Rey.

Hervé Ladsous – a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said they are visiting Armenia to understand how they can support the government and the people.

“We are here at the request of the President, first of all to hear out what is happening, and to understand how we can support in order for you to maximally benefit from what took place last year,” Ladsous said.

Thomas Pickering, a retired American diplomat who served as US envoy to the United Nations from 1989 to 1992, said it’s too early to speak about the results of the trip.

“We are here to be as useful as possible, but after all this is your country, and it is your people and leaders who decide what to do, we can only help with new ideas, that will help them discover old ideas,” he said.

President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian himself was member of the board of the Global Leadership Foundation from 2006 to 2013.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan