Yerevan—Yesterday, March 31, the Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) celebrated the twentieth year of its founding at the Armenia Marriott hotel here.

The solemn event organized in honor of the anniversary was attended by current and former employees of the Center, Ambassadors of the OSCE, United States of America, United Kingdom, Greece, Brazil, India, Italy, Japan, and Lebanon, representatives of several other embassies and international organizations, political analysts, public and political figures, intellectuals, journalists, and other guests.

Father Partev Muradian of the St. Sarkis Church offered the invocation on this special occasion.

Opening the program, ACNIS director Manvel Sargsian noted: “The quality and quantity of today’s audience are testimony to the long-standing respect the Center has earned from Armenian society and the international community. ACNIS has been one of post-Soviet Armenia’s successful projects, not least because its patrons have lent their capital support to the development of an Armenian school of political thought.”

Raffi K. Hovannisian, Armenia’s first foreign minister and ACNIS founding director, next took the floor to address the participants in the ceremony with words of welcome. "From its inception the Center was determined not to go the route of personality-driven policymaking, so customary in the Armenian world, but rather to realize a methodology of strategic thinking characteristic of an institutional structure and thus to become a primary source of independent and critical research and analysis. That is the model of vision for tomorrow’s Armenia, where the key objective must be actualization of the supremacy of the citizen’s fundamental freedoms, sovereignty for the state, and vital interests for the nation." He added that this trinity of precepts must come together as firm guideposts to form the foundation of Armenian national state-building.

The showing of a documentary film depicting the first two decades of ACNIS and its work product was followed by the keynote speech of Garo Ghazarian, a leading lawyer from Los Angeles who serves on the Center’s board of directors.

"ACNIS was established in order to present to the body politic unfettered, impartial and well-measured analyses, assessments and geopolitical predictions anchored in hard facts, to evaluate the developmental priorities and paths to progress of the new state from the perspectives of national and international experience, to help Armenia find its place in the region and the transforming world, and to stand in support of the rights of each citizen.” Ghazarian concluded that every Armenian has been given three important imperatives: to remember the past, to master the present, and to build the future.

Raffi Hovannisian then returned to the podium to deliver the surprise of the celebration, announcing and making a special presentation to the employee of the decade. Thanking all the ACNIS faithful, he called upon chief editor Gevorg Lalayan to receive the award in recognition of his long years of dedicated service.

The official part of the evening, which was moderated by ACNIS colleague Ashkhen Musheghyan and which was enriched by songs performed by Hasmik Harutyunyan and Vahan Artsruni, came to a close with the audience joining in the singing of the Armenian National Anthem.

The evening continued with a festive reception accompanied by the enchanting rhythms of the Mikayel Voskanyan and Friends band.

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The Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) is a leading independent strategic research center located in Yerevan, Armenia.  As an institution committed to conducting professional policy research and analysis, the Center strives to raise the level of public debate and seeks to broaden societal engagement in the policy process as well as to foster greater and more inclusive civic knowledge. Founded in 1994, ACNIS is the institutional initiative of Raffi K. Hovannisian, Armenia’s first Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Over the past 20 years, it has achieved a prominent reputation as a primary source of multi-disciplinary studies covering a wide range of national and international policy issues.

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