By Ambassador Nina Hachigian
In June, I traveled to Armenia where the State Department hosted the U.S.-Armenia Local Democracy Forum, the first-ever forum of its kind. This event showed well the potential for city and state diplomacy and helps explain why the Secretary of State created my new role and team. This forum was also just one element of the Biden Administration’s commitment to making the U.S.-Armenia relationship deeper and broader at a time when the Armenian people and government very much want to develop their new democracy.
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We brought mayors, city and state officials from California, Kansas, Michigan, Montana and Pennsylvania to meet with their Armenian counterparts. Some sister-city and sister-region relationships had been established over the decades, but we inaugurated three new pairs with Helena, MT, Oakland County, MI, and Scranton, PA. Over two days, we discussed the fundamental role of local leaders in democracy—delivering services without corruption, defending free speech and rights of members of minorities, transparency in procurement, and more. Special Representative Sarah Morgenthau was on hand to discuss commercial ties. As local leaders often do when they get together, they also spoke of the more particular challenges in their communities and shared solutions with each other. This is the magic of local-level partnership—good, practical ideas can travel around the world and back to make life better for regular people.
Nearly all the U.S. delegates went to visit their partner cities or regions before or after the Forum. The incredible hospitality and warmth of their Armenian counterparts overwhelmed these local American leaders. They were truly touched by the local Armenian officials’ generosity and enthusiasm.
The most important part is yet to come, of course, as the eight pairs outline future steps in cooperation. Some concrete ideas are already in place. The Mayor of Glendale, for example, plans to bring over a group of city experts in skills her Armenian partners most need. The mayor of Helena is inviting his partner mayor from Stepanavan to Montana to continue their conversation on opportunities for future collaboration.
This forum to bolster local-level connections, so helpful to enhance a country-to-country relationship, contributed to an overall effort of the Biden Administration to strengthen and deepen ties with Armenia to an unprecedented degree.
Early in his presidency, President Biden became the first American president to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915. But the emphasis is now on Armenia’s future as a sovereign democracy in a peaceful region. In 2018, the Armenian people brought a new democratic, reformist government into power after the peaceful “Velvet Revolution.” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has since been elected twice in free and fair elections (the second time after losing territory Armenia had occupied for 30 years) a clear sign that Armenian people want to stay on the path of democracy.
The pace of US-Armenia activity is impressive, which I got to see firsthand as I attended an annual U.S.-Armenia dialogue, where some 30 officials on each side discussed a broad range of cooperative activity from commercial ties to public safety and energy security.
Recent steps the Biden Administration has taken also include Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s joint conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Armenian officials in April to discuss additional assistance for Armenian resilience, and Deputy Secretary Verma conducting the highest-level visit by the State Department since Secretary Clinton visited in 2012 (he opened the local democracy forum with Armenia’s President Khachaturyan).
The Administration has also raised the level of the U.S.-Armenia relationship to a “strategic partnership,” conducted the first bilateral joint military exercises since 2008, and significantly increased U.S. development assistance, including to help the people who fled Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijani military action displaced them from land ethnic Armenians had lived on for thousands of years. Administrator Samantha Power visited for the second time this July, including to Syunik, and announced $11.9 million in new aid for digital transformation, food security, communication, and risk mitigation, on top of the over $65 million the United States government has announced already this year.
The administration supports Armenia and Azerbaijan’s process toward signing a peace treaty and welcomes initiatives like Armenia’s “Crossroads of Peace” that support greater regional connections. Bringing peace and economic integration to the South Caucasus will be transformative for a region and people that have faced decades of conflict.
The big annual climate conference, COP29, will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November. With the eyes of the international community focused on this region, we can hope for a binding agreement that puts strife behind and economic prosperity and peace ahead.
(Ambassador Nina Hachigian is the first Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State.)
