The US Embassy in Armenia is trying to “cut off the foot” of the Armenian programming specialists from America. The point is that it has been a long time since the Consular Service of the Embassy “with and with no reason” denies US visa entry to the employees of the IT sector in Armenia. The Armenian specialists believe that the denials are due to the political reasons, particularly with regard to Armenia’s decision to join the Eurasian Economic Union. In the conversation with Aravot.am, one of the employees of the IT industry who recently was also rejected told that they are rejecting for such a silly reason that he sees an intention in such activities by the US Embassy.
As said by our interlocutor, the high-tech employees were leaving for America on business trip for years, with the so-called business visa. This is prescribed for business meetings, for meetings to discuss business project, or for training for any project. In other words, the specialist of this industry with this type of visa have travelled to the US to present the project and so on. Whereas the Embassy consular officer, as told by one of the rejected, is asking, “Why are you leaving?” “I’m going on business trip to present a project,” after receiving this answer from the Armenian programming specialist, the Embassy employee is asking again, “Do you work on a computer?” Naturally, the IT industry representative was not going to present the project by paper and pen, so, the latter has told the Embassy employee, “Yes, I work on a computer.” “Hence, you are going to work, you have applied for a wrong visa, you should have applied for a work visa rather than a business visa,” this is how the Consulate employee substantiated the rejection. Similar questions and rejections is absurd for the IT sector employees, because these specialists are actually leaving for the United States on a business trip. Our interlocutor said, “The work visa is for other conditions, first, if the specialist leave by the work visa, then it is a long-term and should be paid by the company of given country. In our case, there is no such thing.”
In addition, the embassy also brings another ridiculous excuse for rejection. The specialist leaving for the US on business trip was asked, “Why are you going to present the project there, do it by the telephone?” And the explanations that there is a 12-hour difference between our countries, and it is no appropriate to present such projects by the phone, though, there are some projects that I present through the «Skype». This type of rejections are not 10-20, we can say, hundreds, they reject the employees of all the companies. Karen Vardanyan, Executive director of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises, also sees a political objective in such activities by the US Embassy, because these obstacles began since last summer.
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Note that it was the period when Armenia’s stance to join the EaEU was visible. Since last November, the embassy began the rejection process more frequently. According to Karen Vardanyan observation, the US, probably, has decided to somehow “tear off” Armenia from Russia, and as the IT sector is more active, such as “Dem em” movement, and has calculated to raise a wave of protest against the EaEU with the help of these specialists. “Maybe, people in the US think that there are professional revolutionaries in the IT industry, and someone sends such an instruction to the embassy.”
But this move by the US, according to Mr. Vardanyan, to leave the reverse reaction, the Armenian companies can cooperate with the same Russia, China, Singapore, Taiwan, India and other countries companies. “We are talking about 12 thousand specialists, there is a deficit of such scale of specialists in any market. If the US State Department has made such a decision, then it is a stupidity. This problem needs an urgent solution, because our IT sector is a fast-growing one and it is one of the most important branches of the economy, and with these artificial obstacles, they cause suffer to our companies,” said Karen Vardanyan.
Nelly BABAYAN
