You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service.

This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program.

I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service, with me, Stephen Sacker.

Amid all the upheavals to have reordered politics in the post-Soviet world over the past 25 years,

you could be forgiven for having missed Armenia's Velvet Revolution.

But the spring 2018 street protests, which brought the opposition to power in Yerevan,

did mark a break with Armenia's post-Soviet status quo,

an era defined by corruption, caution,

and continued stalemate in a conflict with neighbouring Azerbaijan. So where is the new government taking Armenia? A small state with outsized geopolitical significance thanks to its location

on a fault line of regional hostility.

Well, my guest today is Armenia's foreign minister, Zorab Munatsa Canyon, and he joins me now.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you.

Last year saw major political upheaval in your country, Armenia, the so-called Velvet Revolution, after which

you and your government claimed that you were working for a new Armenia. Skeptics will say it

looks very much like the old Armenia. So what's different? Why would they say that? Because, for example,

you were an official for many, many years under previous regimes.

You're a man of great governmental experience. You're not a new broom at all.

I made a choice of my own. I made a choice to move from diplomatic career to politics.

That's the major change. I took up the responsibility to share with the government in which

...