By Mark Dovich
The European Union and United States said Friday they will together provide Armenia with additional financial support worth nearly $360 million before holding first-of-their-kind joint talks.
The meeting, which brought together the Armenian prime minister, the leader of the EU, the EU’s foreign policy chief, the U.S. top diplomat, and the head of USAID, was meant to “reaffirm support for Armenia’s sovereignty, democracy, territorial integrity, and socio-economic resilience,” according to a readout.
Speaking to the press before heading behind closed doors, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the bloc would provide more than $290 in grants to be disbursed over the next four years, with a particular focus on supporting small businesses, infrastructure development, and energy diversification.
For his part, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated his country plans to provide some $65 million in support, with an eye toward growing trade, supporting agricultural production, and expanding energy cooperation, including in nuclear power.
Both Brussels and Washington also plan to allocate additional funding to support the more than 100,000 Armenians who were forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia last September.
In addition, Von der Leyen and Blinken said they welcomed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s trademark Crossroads of Peace initiative, which envisages Armenia as a regional trade hub at the center of a network of international transit routes.
Briefing reporters after the talks, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien said opening new routes to connect South Caucasus to global trade networks is a “generational project” with transformative potential for the region.
In the run-up to Friday’s talks, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkey each expressed their displeasure with Armenia’s accelerating tilt to the West, prompting von der Leyen and Blinken each to phone Baku in an apparent attempt at damage control.
“The conversations were very good and constructive,” O’Brien told reporters.
When asked to follow up by a reporter who described the calls as an attempt to “convince Azerbaijan this (meeting) is not about them,” O’Brien insisted: “I never felt it was our business to convince Azerbaijan about the conference. We have been very clear about what we intended to do. We have done exactly as we said.”
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