MOSCOW — Armenia’s top minister visited Moscow and held talks Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid spiraling tensions between the estranged allies.
Putin hosted Nikol Pashinyan for talks following a zenith of the Eurasian Financial Union, a Moscow-dominated financial alliance. that they each attended previous within the presen. The negotiations got here a presen later Putin started his 5th time period at a glittering Kremlin forming.
Briefly remarks at first of the talks, Putin stated that bilateral industry was once rising, however stated “some issues concerning security in the region.”
Pashinyan, who extreme visited Moscow in December, stated that “certain issues have piled up since then.”
Armenia’s ties with its longtime sponsor and best friend Russia have grown an increasing number of strained later Azerbaijan waged a lightning army marketing campaign in September to reclaim the Karabakh patch, finishing 3 many years of ethnic Armenian separatists’ rule there.
Armenian government accused Russian peacekeepers who have been deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh later the former spherical of hostilities in 2020 of failing to cancel Azerbaijan’s onslaught. Moscow, which has an army bottom in Armenia, has unfavourable the accusations, arguing that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intrude.
The Kremlin, in flip, has been angered by way of Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen ties with the West and distance his nation from Moscow-dominated safety and financial alliances.
Simply as Pashinyan was once visiting Moscow on Wednesday, Armenia’s Overseas Ministry introduced that the rustic will cancel paying charges to the Collective Safety Treaty Group, a Russia-dominated safety pact. Armenia has prior to now suspended its participation within the grouping as Pashinyan has sought to strengthen ties with the Eu Union and NATO.
Russia was once additionally vexed by way of Armenia’s choice to fasten the World Legal Court docket, which extreme while indicted Putin for alleged struggle crimes attached to the Russian motion in Ukraine.
Moscow, busy with the Ukrainian struggle that has dragged into a 3rd while, has publicly voiced worry about Yerevan’s westward shift however desired to downplay the variations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov conceded Tuesday that “there are certain problems in our bilateral relations,” however added that “there’s a political will to proceed the discussion.”
