Armenia is putting its security at greater risk with its continuing drift to the West, a senior Russian official said on Thursday, reacting to Yerevan’s participation in the latest NATO summit.
“Instead of a constructive approach to discussing Yerevan’s concerns, unfortunately they chose a different path,” Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told the RIA Novosti news agency. “Armenia prefers to increase interaction with NATO or individual members of the alliance, especially in terms of implementing NATO standards, purchasing weapons or conducting joint combat training activities, not to mention participation in the summit of this military-political bloc taking place in Washington these days. All this can cause nothing but extreme regret.”
“By deepening cooperation at such a pace with those whose goal is the ‘strategic defeat’ of Russia, Yerevan with its own hands risks seriously destabilizing the situation in the South Caucasus, including to the detriment of its own security,” he warned. “I think knowledgeable specialists and politicians in Armenia understand the possible costs of such imprudent steps.”
Galuzin, who is in charge of Russia’s relations with other ex-Soviet states, did not specify just how closer ties with the United States and other Western powers could undermine Armenia’s national security. The diplomat already twice warned the Armenian government last month of consequences of reorienting the South Caucasus towards the West. He insisted that the Russian-led that Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is the only viable “mechanism for ensuring Armenia’s security.”
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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced early this year the effective suspension of Armenia’s membership in the CSTO accused by him of ignoring his administration’s requests for military and political support in the face of Azerbaijani attacks on Armenian border areas. Pashinian afterwards promised to eventually withdraw his country from the alliance.
Also, Pashinian’s political team has been toying with the idea of applying for membership of the European Union. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk warned on June 25 that Armenia will lose tariff-free access to the Russian market and other economic privileges granted by Moscow if it does seek to join the EU. Overchuk stressed that the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russian-led trade bloc of which Armenia is also a member, are “incompatible things.”
Galuzin pointed to Overchuk’s warnings in his comments to RIA Novosti. Yerevan cannot “sit on two chairs” in the economic or other spheres, he said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan was invited to the summit in Washington along with representatives of other NATO “partner states,” including Azerbaijan. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted talks there on Wednesday between Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov.
Mirzoyan also attended various meetings held on the margins of the summit, including an event organized by U.S. President Joe Biden to mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of NATO. The Armenian minister tweeted earlier Wednesday that he was “glad” to attend the event and that his government is committed to “enhancing Armenia’s partnership with NATO.”