YEREVAN. – The statement, which US Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern made at the Third Annual International Pension Conference that was held in capital city Yerevan on February 21, is not a pressure on the country’s civil society.

The ambassador simply wished to stress that, “the international institutions always work with the authorities,” analyst Edgar Vardanyan said at a press conference on Monday.

“The international organizations think that the very introduction of the mandatory funded [pension] system is one of the ways to pull Armenia out of the economic collapse; that’s why the US ambassador made such a statement,” Vardanyan noted.

For his part, analyst Ruben Mehrabyan expressed a conviction that, irrespective of everything, this law shall not pass in Armenia.

“Despite the good views on the new funded pension law, [and] what the ambassadors think [about it], the mandatory [component of this law] shall not be,” Mehrabyan added.

Ambassador John Heffern’s statements at the aforesaid conference had caused large protests among the opponents of the new pension reform. The “I am against” civic initiative members had even sent open letters to the American diplomat.

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am