ACCORDING TO J. PENNINGTON, PROBLEMS ON ARMENIA’S CORRESPONDENCE TO MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE PROGRAM HAD EMERGED AS EARLY AS BEFORE ELECTIONS

Noyan Tapan
March 28, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 28, NOYAN TAPAN. The United States is concerned with the
events that happened in Armenia in the last months. Joseph Pennington,
the Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy, stated on March 28.

He said that Armenian-American ties embrace many spheres and assistance
provided by the U.S. since Armenia’s independence was mainly aimed
at development of democracy. However, some problems on Armenian
authorities’ having chosen the way of democracy have emerged during
the events that happened in the past several months. "We have some
concerns about the holding of the elections, incidents that happened
on the day of elections, events following the elections, recounting
of votes, and certainly, the March 1 and 2 tragic events, which were
followed by declaration of state of emergency, limitation of media’s
activity, and arrests of people," J. Pennington stated.

All this, according to him, gave an occasion of concern to Washington,
which was also expressed in the letter of John Danilovich, the Director
of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, addressed to Armenian
President Robert Kocharian, sent in early March. J. Pennington
emphasized that the indices needed for permanent participation
in the program already had bad tendencies even before the latest
events. Armenia had problems connected with "fair government,"
in particular, freedom of media, corruption, transparency of
government’s activity, and democratization. "The events of the last
two months deepened for even more the concerns we had," the Charge
d’Affaires said. The possibility of freezing Armenia’s participation
in the program is clearly mentioned in Ambassador Danilovish’s
letter. According to J. Pennington, no decision of the kind has
been made yet, and it will be fair to give the new administration a
possibility to improve the situation. He added that the newly elected
RA President’s statements are hopeful in the respect of steps aimed
at returning Armenia to democratization, but unless such steps are
taken, the program’s freezing is a very real possibility.

According to J. Pennington, many things will become clear after the
first 100 days of the new President’s tenure.

According to the diplomat, the U.S. denies its relation to the
post-electoral developments in Armenia. In his words, other countries
of the U.S. will not play a pivotal part in the issue of solving
Armenia’s problems, either: they have emerged in Armenia and should
be solved here.

According to J. Pennington, no request to assist the investigation
of the March 1-2 events has been made to the U.S., either, and the
participation of the U.S. is not expected.

Touching upon the arrests of people in the center of Yerevan lately,
J. Pennington said that the United States has expressed its concern
about these issues to the authorities. According to him, though all
those brought to the Police in the recent days have been released,
he cannot evaluate the phenomenon as constructive. J. Pennington also
said that no decision has been made so far whether he will take part
in the inauguration ceremony of the Armenian President.

The Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. also said that the White House has
not made a decision yet about the candidature of a new U.S. Ambassador
to Armenia.

In response to the problems over the Nagorno Karabakh settlement that
emerged lately J. Pennington said that the U.S. continues supporting
the problem’s peaceful settlement and considers that especially the
OSCE Minsk Group’s format will contribute to it. He said that Matthew
Bryza, a representative of the U.S. in the Minsk Group, will arrive
in the region soon.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress