Strategic partnership with Armenia very important for U.S. - Assistant Secretary of State

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YEREVAN, June 18. /ARKA/. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan met on Monday with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Management and Resources Richard Verma, who arrived in Armenia as part of the first official visit of a delegation of U.S. mayors and local government officials./pp

According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, the interlocutors discussed issues related to the expansion of Armenia-US bilateral cooperation agenda, as well as regional developments./pp

Regarding the final session of the Armenia-US strategic dialogue held in Yerevan on June 12, Mirzoyan noted that not only the aspiration to enrich the cooperation with new directions was emphasized, but also a decision was made to take the bilateral relations to a new level of strategic partnership./pp

So, we are moving in the right direction, we have tangible results, Mirzoyan said./pp

Verma said the strategic partnership is very important for the United States./pp

As a result of the discussions here, we want to have a clear roadmap on how we can make progress in key areas: peace and prosperity, economy, trade, people-to-people contacts, and take our cooperation to a new level, Verma said./pp

The interlocutors discussed the issues of Armenian-American decentralized cooperation, stressing the importance of establishing and expanding interaction./pp

Mirzoyan and Verma also discussed the development of Armenian-American relations in the context of enhancing Armenia's sustainability. The successful progress of the reforms aimed at strengthening democracy and the rule of law in Armenia was touched upon and the valuable support of the U.S. in this direction was emphasized./pp

In the context of regional security issues Mirzoyan presented to the interlocutor the efforts of normalization of relations with Azerbaijan, including the signing of the peace treaty. The issues of economic and transportation communications were touched upon, as well as the opportunities that the implementation of the Crossroads of Peace project developed by the Armenian government could open up. -0-/pp nbsp;/pp nbsp;/p