“This does not exclude good bilateral relations with Russia, and this is something we want to explain to our Russian colleagues,” he added.
Earlier this month, during a meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the EU unveiled a 270 million of euros intended to help strengthen the economic independence and resilience of the former Soviet Union. Republic. Russia currently has an effective monopoly on energy networks, railways and imports of essential products like grain.
While Russia has also maintained control of Armenia’s borders for the past three decades, relations have deteriorated in recent years, with the Kremlin refusing to support the country in its long-running conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan. Moscow deployed more than a thousand peacekeepers to the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region following a war in 2020, but its troops refused to intervene last September when Azerbaijani forces launched an offensive and triggered the mass exodus of its 100,000 Armenian residents.
Days before the attack, Pashinyan told POLITICO that the country could no longer rely on Russia for its security and praised Western countries for helping to implement democratic reforms.
Armenia has now suspended its membership in the Moscow-led CSTO military alliance, invited US troops to hold joint exercises in the country and depends on an EU civilian monitoring mission to deter attacks. clashes along its tense border with Azerbaijan. At the same time, it has stepped up efforts to avoid falling foul of Western sanctions against Russia, working to prevent the export of sensitive goods that could be used by Moscow’s forces occupying Ukraine. .
But, according to Balayan, who heads the Armenian delegation to the EU, this should not be seen as a “pivot to the West” at the expense of Russia.
“When we discuss these issues with Russian diplomats and I explain to them what we are doing, I have never received arguments about why we should not do this, how European and American investments in the Armenian economy could harm Russian interests.” he said.
Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized Armenia’s growing ties with Europe and the United States, accusing the government of “deliberately leading things to the collapse of relations with the Russian Federation.” Russia.”
Politico
