Senior Russian lawmakers have condemned the Armenian government’s demand for Russia to remove its border guards from Armenia’s main international airport as another serious blow to bilateral relations.
One of them warned Yerevan against also seeking the withdrawal of all Russian military security personnel from Armenia, saying that would have severe consequences for the country’s security.
Russian border guards have for decades been stationed at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport as well as along Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran as part of close Russian-Armenian military ties. A senior official announced on Wednesday that the Armenian government has formally demanded their withdrawal from the airport because it now has “the capacity to fully carry out controls” there.
The move followed what Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described last month as an effective “freezing” of Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Moscow has not yet officially responded to it.
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“This is the [Pashinyan government’s] first major unfriendly step: it hints that we are not quite welcome in Armenia anymore,” Viktor Bondarev, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s defense committee, wrote on Telegram late on Thursday. “In effect, this is Armenia’s slow and steady slide towards unfriendliness, a departure from the foundations of the CSTO.”
Bondarev described the development as a possible prelude to Yerevan’s demand for the withdrawal of all Russian border guards and military forces from Armenia, something which he said would be “fraught with escalation of tensions” in the region.
“I would not recommend that the Armenian authorities even think about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Armenia,” warned the former commander of the Russian air force.
Konstantin Zatulin, a senior member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, suggested that such a move by Pashinyan’s administration is only a matter of time. “The Armenian government is demonstratively breaking ties with Russia,” he said.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan stressed earlier on Thursday that the Armenian side wants the Russian border guards to leave only the Zvartnots airport.
Pashinyan last month did not rule out the possibility of Armenia leaving the CSTO because of what he calls the military alliance’s failure to honor its security commitments to the South Caucasus state. But neither he nor other Armenian officials have signaled so far plans to end the Russian military presence there.
Armenian opposition groups say a breakup of Armenia’s military alliance with Russia would create a dangerous security vacuum which cannot be filled by Western powers and would pave the way for Azerbaijani and even Turkish military aggression.