Why U.S. customs officers never arrived in Yerevan: Deputy Foreign Minister Explained

U.S. customs and border control specialists have not yet arrived in Armenia due to the change of administration in the White House. Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan told reporters.

In January, then-Secretary of State Blinken said at the signing ceremony of the Armenia-U.S. Charter of Strategic Partnership that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection team should arrive in Armenia in the coming weeks to work with Armenian partners on developing border security capabilities. But the other day, State Revenue Committee Deputy Chairman Rafael Gevorgyan said the visit has not yet taken place.

As Hovhannisyan noted today, the agreements reached in January have not been canceled, and the change of the team in Washington should be taken into account. At the same time, he assured that the issue was also agreed with neighboring Iran.

Let us remind that the document signed by Yerevan and Washington covers a number of key spheres, where the Americans intend to “support” Armenia. These are economy (including energy and innovations), defense, security, development of democracy and justice. Thus, one of the components of cooperation will be border security and the establishment of a relevant joint commission. Within this framework, a customs and border control team will soon arrive in Armenia to “strengthen border security”.

Commenting on the signing, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier that it was Yerevan's sovereign decision and that Russia, for its part, values relations with Armenia and will continue to develop them. The Kremlin spokesman noted that the United States has never played a stabilizing role in the South Caucasus.

Reprinted from https://am.sputniknews.ru/