On June 27, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian received Celeste Wallander, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Welcoming the guest, Edward Nalbandian highly assessed the partnership relations between Armenia and the USA, expressing confidence that the launched cooperation between the two countries will further enlarge.

The U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, in his part, expressed satisfaction with the Armenian–American interaction dynamically developing and underlined that the United States will continue to support Armenia’s efforts undertaken towards the peacekeeping, military education and defense reforms.

The interlocutors exchanged views on the Armenian-American agenda issues, touched upon the military assistance provided by the United States to Armenia, the cooperation between Armenia and the NATO, and the works carried out in that format.

In the course of the meeting, the sides touched upon Armenia’s participation in the peacekeeping operations of the international community. In that context, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense highly assessed Armenia’s contribution to the peacekeeping operations, particularly welcoming the tripling of the number of the Armenian peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan.

The sides discussed the issues related to the regional security.

The Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs presented the developments around the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and the results of the Kazan meeting. In that context, Minister Nalbandian underlined that progress was not achieved in Kazan meeting, because despite the calls and expectations of the heads of the mediatory countries and international community, Azerbaijan was not ready to accept the last version of the Basic principles proposed by the Co-Chairs, putting forward dozens of amendments.