The US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Armenia Lynne Tracy answered the question of journalists, including Armenian News - NEWS.am.
In your interview with Armenpress, you mentioned that the US recognizes the role of the people of Nagorno Karabakh in determining its future. How do you think that role should be expressed?
What really important right now is to emphasize this principle. I don't want to speculate on how this looks in the future. This is something for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and the other parties to decide as they move forward with the negotiations.
In the same interview, you also talked about democracy in Armenia. Today during the Armenian democracy forum, journalists were not allowed to enter the meeting to cover the work of the forum. We see today's actions against opposition MPs, the actions against the police, and protesters. And many believe that the United States and the US embassy are guided by double standards and are silent in today's cases. Why is that?
I don't think we have been silent. We have already spoken out in Washington and here that we call on the police to act appropriately, to avoid excessive force.
We also call on the protesters, who have the right to demonstrate peacefully, to also conduct themselves in a peaceful manner.
And we certainly call on all parties on the streets, the police and the protesters, to respect the rights of journalists to cover these events and not interfere with the work of journalists.
And I see that there have already been complaints filed. And I also see the police have committed to investigating these complaints. I think that's very important, that is what democracy is about, it is about accountability.
As I said in some of my remarks in the forum, democracy is not a state of perfection. We see in many democracies, including in the United States, ongoing issues of the need to reform the police and hold the police accountable.
But these kinds of developments and situations do not mean that there is no democracy. What they mean is that citizens have the right to ask for accountability and the government is responsible for investigating and providing transparency and that accountability.
And as I said a few minutes ago, I remain very encouraged about Armenia's trajectory on the democratic path and we continue to work with the people of Armenia and the government of Armenia on this wider reform agenda to support democracy.