OUR Armenia this is not an ally of Russia at war in Ukraine Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is concerned about the impact of this crisis on relations with other countries, which caused a cautious reaction in Moscow.
The diminutive former Soviet republic in the South Caucasus region has close security and economic ties with Russia, further strengthened by a years-long dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh territory.
Armenia is a member of the Moscow-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which is a military alliance, while Azerbaijan is not.
“We are not an ally of Russia in the war in Ukraine. And our feeling about this war, this conflict, is alarming, because it directly affects all our relations,” Pashinyan said in an interview with CNN Prima News, adding that Armenia feels squeezed between the two sides.
“The West reports that we are an ally of Russia (…) in Russia they see that we are not their ally in the war in Ukraine, and it follows that we are not an ally to anyone in this situation, which means that we are vulnerable,” Pasinyan said.
When asked about Pashinyan’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded cautiously, saying that Moscow had taken note of what he called “an important statement.”
“We know that there are certain nuances in Armenia’s approach to the Ukrainian conflict. We take them into account, we are aware, but at the same time we continue to develop our allied relations with Armenia,” Peskov said.
Former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov, commenting on Peskov’s statement, said on his Telegram channel that Moscow “means that Pashinyan is leading Armenia away from friendship with Russia into the arms of Russia’s enemies.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan have resumed negotiations aimed at reaching a peace agreement to resolve the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by Armenians.
Azerbaijan in 2020 won back parts of the territory that it lost in the conflict with Armenia in the early 1990s, when Soviet power collapsed.
Source: Kathimerini
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