Epress.am News from Armenia
It's hard to imagine a delegation from Washington in Yerevan asking that teaching of the English language be promoted, said RA Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan (pictured), speaking to journalists today and referring to head of Rossiya Segodnya ("Russia Today"), Russian journalist Dmitry Kiselyov's earlier remark that the Russian language should be granted official status in Armenia.
The minister, in particular, said that prevalence of the English language does not require administrative intervention, since the language spreads internationally and Russia also knows this.
"You must understand that Armenia cannot be interested in the spread of Russian [language] in Armenia more than Russia itself. And interest is expressed not only through public statements," he said.
Kiselyov warned that failure to make Russian a commonly spoken language in Armenia would jeopardize Yerevan’s close security ties to Moscow. “The [Armenian] law on the language should be amended in the interests of Armenia’s security,” he said, reported RFE/RL's Armenian service.
In the context of Kiselyov's statement, Ashotyan recalled the civic initiative "We are against foreign-language schools".
"Remember the law on foreign-language schools, which was adopted at the price of a huge struggle. Everyone was talking about 'the hand of the White House,' 'the foot of the Kremlin,' 'pressure from Moscow,' and many other things. Until now, 2 schools were opened under this law. When it became clear that both of these were English-language schools, it didn't pull at the patriotic heartstrings of these people. But why?" said Ashotyan.