Alexander Arzoumanian

Alexander Arzumanyan is Armenia's first ambassador to the United States and to the United Nations. He served as minister of foreign affairs from 1996 until his resignation, with President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, in 1998. Since then, he has been involved in local politics, as chairman of the Armenian national liberation movement (2000–2002), and in the private sector, as chief advisor to the president of Armagrobank (1998–2000). At present, he works with local NGOs in the area of human rights, democracy, and regional cooperation, and is a founding member of the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission, an independent group of prominent Armenians and Turks. The TARC was established in July 2001 to promote mutual understanding and good will between the people of Armenia and Turkey, and to encourage improved relations between the countries. In July 2002, the TARC commissioned a groundbreaking legal analysis regarding the applicability of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to the Armenian Genocide from the New York-based International Center for Transitional Justice.