Armenia is Becoming a ‘Tool’ of the West, Moscow Says
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday said that the position of Armenia’s current leadership “does not inspire optimism” for relations between Yerevan and Moscow.
“I have already had to comment on the current situation in Armenia, it certainly does not inspire optimism. The Armenian leadership, to put it bluntly, under far-fetched pretexts, are altering the history of the last three to three and a half years, and deliberately pursuing a course that may collapse relations with the Russian Federation,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Izvestia news agency on Thursday.
The Russian foreign minister said that Yerevan has been slandering Russian servicemen who are stationed at the 102nd military base in Gyumri, the Russian border guards and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
“Yerevan does not mention that it is the CSTO that has repeatedly defended Armenia’s interests in difficult situations and, in 2021, was ready to send its peacekeeping mission to the country to reduce the tension in its relationships with Azerbaijan,” Lavrov said.
He recalled that the mandate of this mission was fully agreed upon at a ministerial meeting in Yerevan in the autumn of 2021, after which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared a lack of consensus and summoned a similar EU mission to the country.
It was subsequently doubled, and now troops from Norway, Canada, and the United States are being sent there, turning the EU mission into a NATO mission, Lavrov added.
Despite Lavrov’s remarks, there are currently no American observers embedded in the EU mission.
“This entire story of the past few years is being twisted by both Mr Pashinyan and his staff, the leadership of the Armenian parliament,” Lavrov said.
Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Thursday voiced Moscow’s concern over an upcoming meeting between Pashinyan, the Secretary of State and the European Commission President, scheduled for April 5.
She said her country’s concerns stems from the United State and European Union overtly stating that their main objective is to counter Russia.
“Such meetings cause concern with most of the countries in the region because they are not aimed at achieving peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but rather they serve as the West’s further entry in the South Caucasus,” Zakharova said.
“With its extremely destructive approaches, at the creation of new dividing lines there, at forcing the countries of the region to follow the anti-Russian agenda, at the destruction of their age-old ties with Moscow, and at the collapse of the existing mechanisms of regional security and economic cooperation,” added Zakharova.
“Right before the world’s eyes, Armenia is being turned into a tool for the implementation of the collective West’s extremely dangerous plans, which are completely different from the fundamental interests of the Armenian people,” Zakharova said.
“Why is Yerevan pretending not to grasp that this is a larger issue,” she added.
