BOSTON — Ambassador Rouben Shougarian passed away on April 21 after a stroke, his family reported.
“It is with great sorrow that we announce that our loving father and husband, Ambassador Rouben Shougarian, PhD, passed away peacefully this morning in Boston, Mass. after suffering a stroke last week,” the ambassador’s son, Narek Shougarian, said in a Facebook post.
Shougarian is survived by his wife Lilit Karapetian-Shougarian and sons Narek, Tigran and Haik.
He served as Armenia’s deputy foreign minister (1999-2005), ambassador to Italy, Spain and Portugal (2005-2008), and was Armenia’s first Ambassador to the United States (1993-1999).
He also served as a senior staffer for the Armenian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs (1991), and a senior foreign policy aide and spokesperson for President Levon Ter-Petrosyan (1992).
Shougarian most recently was a lecturer at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, in Medford, Mass.
