2012 will mark the 20th anniversary of establishing the Armenian embassy in Great Britain. The Armenian embassy in Great Britain, established in October, 1992, was the first for independent Armenia.
The embassy of the Republic of Armenia is situated in one of the most famous neighborhoods in London, High Street Kensington, and occupies two small rooms in a building owned by the British-Armenian community and called “Armenian House”. This is the very place where we had a conversation with Karine Ghazinyan, appointed the Armenian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Great Britain by the order of the President of the Republic of Armenia on September 8.
Mrs. Ghazinyan observed that she intended to solemnly celebrate that important event for the diplomacy of independent Armenia. However, it is only one of the points, none the less, very important one, in the list of actions to be taken in 2012 by Mrs. Ambassador.
The list, as I understood from a conversation with Mrs. Ambassador, is limitless, “Relations of the Republic of Armenia with other influential members of the European Union, such as France and Germany, are quite developed, whereas I cannot say the same about the United Kingdom. As a new ambassador I have taken on the task to make political dialogue active, which also means economic cooperation, cultural and educational ties etc. Before my coming to London, when I was a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, political consultations took place in London between the two foreign ministries, we will continue those consultations, which are very important, next year. Besides, no high-ranking official from the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has visited Armenia for a long time, I think it is important to organize such a visit and I have already reached a preliminary agreement that David Lidington, a Minister of State at the Foreign Office, serving as Minister for Europe, will visit Yerevan in spring, 2012, and will bring a group of businessmen with him. Generally, I give much importance to economic diplomacy and we have already been working with the City of London to strengthen such ties. My projects are very many and it is obvious that all of them cannot be implemented in one year, but we should work on that. Generally it is a hard year for Britain, since it is an Olympic year, the 2012 Summer Olympic Games will be held here, besides it is the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s accession, a diamond anniversary.
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The year will be a busy year. As I have already said, it is the 20th anniversary of the first embassy of independent Armenia that I w, I think, will be celebrated in every embassy, we think of organizing interesting events here too.
Shakespeare Olympiad in London will also take place this year, 37 countries of the world will perform Shakespeare’s plays in their languages and Armenia will stage ‘King John’ that will be performed by the Sundukyan Theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe on May 16 and 17.”
Melanya BARSEGHYAN
London
