USAID may close its office in Yerevan

/By AzerNews - Mushvig Mehdiyev/

The U.S. will either stop or significantly cut the programs it carried out in Armenia via its international aid agency, reported media in Yerevan.

Washington's decision to close the United States Agency for International Development office in Yerevan has come in response to Armenia's membership at the Eurasian Economic Union, the local First Information Channel reported.

Armenia is an official EEU member since January 2 this year and the decision to intertwine with the Russia-led bloc has been made in spite of preparations to integrate into the European space.

Russian Ambassador to Armenia, Ivan Volinkin has always called on Armenia's rulers to apply "Russian experience" in relations with the public institutions financed by Western forces.

Armenia's EEU devotion and also Russia's traditional influence on its southern neighbor may well emerge here as decisive as the White House mulls over locking down the USAID office or shrink its financial aid to Yerevan, have said the experts.

"All nations separately or within certain organizations including the European Union are aware that the EEU is an economic union backed by Russia's political ambitions," former legislature Stephan Safaryan told the First Information Channel.

Safaryan claims that none of the western organizations could realize a program in Armenia knowing the fact that their results are not guaranteed against any threat.

"Western forces know that the outcomes of their projects could be zeroed out just in a day in Armenia. For example, the U.S. may launch a specific program and suddenly realize that the EEU is knocking on its door. In this case, Armenia's EEU integration stands behind Washington's reluctance to keep USAID office in Yerevan," he said.

USAID has realized numerous projects and reforms in various spheres in Armenia from legislative activities to public relations throughout more than twenty years of cooperation with Yerevan. Now, the organization seems far more unwilling to go on its projects given Armenian leadership's option for Russia over the Western allies.

Meanwhile, earlier in February, the U.S. leadership proposed a record reduction in annual financial aid to Armenia in the draft budget for Fiscal Year 2016. The Obama administration offered to decrease the money allocation to the post-Soviet nation to $24.7 million, dramatically less than last year’s actual economic aid of $40 million.

Moreover, the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-based agency that stands for the improvement of democracy, announced earlier this year that it will close its office in Yerevan.

Representative of the NDI, Gegam Sarkisyan said the decision was not unexpected, since there were some disillusionments with Armenia in Washington. In addition, he confessed that the U.S. priorities in the post-Soviet space have already changed and Armenia has always been on the edge of being deprived of financial aid due to its tighter relations with Russia in recent years.

Millennium Challenge Corporation, the U.S. agency to assist foreign countries based on good policies, once again left out Armenia from its list of beneficiary countries last year due to the high corruption rate in the post-Soviet country.