The United States promised $16 million in fresh assistance to Armenia on Tuesday after senior officials from the two countries held talks in Yerevan described by them as “strategic dialogue.”

The delegations led by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent and Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigor Hovannisian discussed a wide range of issues and pledged to strive for closer bilateral ties.

“The conversation today started with talking about how Armenia can reform its justice system and improve anti-corruption activity,” Kent told reporters. “By the end we were talking about clean water, protecting the environmentally endangered animals and different possibilities of energy generation.”

“I think it shows how many issues we talked about and the possibilities of the U.S. and Armenia working together based on shared values and shared interests,” he said at a joint news conference with Hovannisian.

Regional security was also on the agenda of what both sides described as the first session of the “U.S.-Armenia strategic dialogue.”

“We had a long discussion about the security in the region, not just the Caucasus but all around Armenia, and the implications when countries look to destabilize, rather than to support security and peace,” Kent said in reference to neighboring Iran, with which Armenia is maintaining a cordial rapport despite the renewed U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Kent met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Monday. Pashinian was cited by his press office as telling him that forging closer ties with the United States is “of great importance to Armenia.”

Speaking in the Armenian parliament in March, Pashinian complained about Washington’s “zero reaction” to democratic change in his country. He seemed unhappy with the fact that there has been no significant increase in U.S. economic assistance to Armenia since last year’s “velvet revolution” which brought him to power.

The U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, Lynne Tracy, countered last month that in 2018 Washington provided $26.7 million in assistance to Armenia in addition to an ongoing $66 million aid program implemented by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

A memorandum of understanding signed as a result of Tuesday’s talks calls for further U.S. aid. In a statement, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said the U.S. government will provide up to $16 million to support economic growth and good governance in the South Caucasus nation. In addition, it said, the USAID will allocate $6 million in support of the Armenian government’s “democratic reform agenda.”

“The delegations reaffirmed the United States’ and Armenia’s mutual commitment to deepening cooperation in all areas of bilateral relations,” added the statement.

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