Pashinyan will not Attend Putin’s Inauguration on Tuesday
President Vladimir Putin of Russia will hold a meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday, the Kremlin announced on Monday. This announcement came as Pashinyan’s close ally told reporters that the prime minister would not attend Putin’s inauguration, scheduled for Tuesday.
Pashinyan will travel to Moscow on Wednesday to take part in a summit of Eurasian Economic Union, which is currently chaired by Armenia.
Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Monday that the meeting will take place after the annual meeting of the Eurasian Economic Council on May 8. It will be followed by a dinner for the leaders of CIS countries.
The Kremlin representative said “this bilateral contact will be very substantive, there will be many issues for discussion.”
“Recently, problematic issues have emerged in relations between Russia and Armenia, which, as we expect, will be openly discussed between the leaders,” Ushakov said.
“You know that Pashinyan himself said in April that relations with Moscow are not going through the best of times. Recently, contacts between our countries at various levels have noticeably decreased. Criticism has been addressed both to Russia and to the CSTO,” Ushakov added.
Speaking about the problems with the CSTO, the Kremlin representative recalled that Yerevan has de facto frozen its participation in the organization, although it has not yet withdrawn from it.
Earlier in the day, Pashinyan’s close ally, Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan, told reporters that the prime minister will not attend Putin’s inauguration.
