WASHINGTON, DC - Armenian Americans nationwide were justifiably shocked to see reports on Tuesday, September 12th on top U.S. news sites spotlighting Armenia as one of seven countries, including Burundi, Egypt, Kuwait, Sudan, Tunisia and Zambia, in which U.S. Embassies issued security alerts after the tragic attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya just a day earlier.

Armenia has no modern history of religiously-oriented violence or anti-American demonstrations, and no ties to any of the groups leading protests in the Arab countries in which U.S. embassies have been targeted, ANCA said in a statement.

Since the story first broke, seeking answers and accountability, the ANCA reached out to the U.S. State Department and the AP reporter who wrote the initial article on this subject.

The ANCA was informed by Department of State sources, later confirmed publicly by State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, that on the night of September 11th, after the Benghazi attacks, the State Department “sent a message to every diplomatic mission in the world asking them to again review security and take the necessary measures.  Some of you will have seen that there were increased emergency warnings or security warnings that were also issued to Americans in some 50-plus missions around the world since that went out.”

The AP reporter, Matthew Lee confirmed that list had been expanded to some 50 countries since then.

A number of pressing questions remain unanswered.

Why was the U.S. Embassy in Armenia, a Christian country with no record of Islamic protests, among the first countries to send out an emergency alert to U.S. citizens? Neighboring U.S. embassies in Azerbaijan and Georgia have yet to post any type of warnings either on their websites or in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security page.  An alert was finally posted on the U.S. Embassy of Turkey on September 15th, regarding credible reports of demonstrations, with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security site posting it a day after.

The ANCA will continue to press for honest answers and governmental accountability regarding this highly sensitive matter for all Armenians.

Armenian News-NEWS.am also contacted State Department receiving an answer that “warning on possible threat against the U.S. citizens in Armenia is conditioned primarily with the geographical situation of Armenia and the fact of being close to the region where terroristic acts are held.”