The Russian Foreign Ministry first announced the plans in May 2023 following Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Russian officials have since repeatedly visited Syunik’s capital Kapan for that purpose.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov said on June 20 that Moscow continues “working in this direction” and expects to inaugurate the consulate in Kapan “by the end of the year.” The Russian government formally approved the opening of the mission on July 1.
“I would like to note that in line with the wishes of the Armenian side, the decision of the Russian government provides for the opening of a consulate general according to a simplified scheme, without concluding an agreement through the exchange of notes, which is customary in our practice,” Kopyrkin told the Sputnik news agency.
“We now expect further steps from our Armenian partners as well, including taking into account the principle of parity and reciprocity accepted in diplomatic practice,” he said. “As you know, in Armenia we have one consulate general in Gyumri, while our [Armenian] colleagues have consular missions in [the Russian cities of] St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don, not counting two offices in Novosibirsk and Vladikavkaz.”
Kopyrkin did not specify what exactly Moscow expects from the Armenian government.
The Yerevan daily Hraparak reported on June 25 that the government is trying to scuttle the opening of the Russian consulate through local activists of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party. It claimed that one of them, parliament deputy Marina Ghazarian, has collected signatures of Kapan residents opposed to the consulate and submitted them to the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
Ghazarian denied the claim and said she personally supports the Russian diplomatic presence in Syunik. She also told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that many local residents are against it.
Another Kapan-based pro-government parliamentarian, Davit Danielian similarly denied any government obstruction. By contrast, the Foreign Ministry in Yerevan declined to comment on the Hraparak report.
Russian-Armenian relations have deteriorated further over the past year, with Pashinian freezing and pledging to eventually end Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Pashinian’s administration is “leading things to the collapse” of bilateral ties.
Syunik is Armenia’s sole region bordering Iran. Azerbaijani leaders have been demanding that Yerevan open a special corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik.
Iran is strongly opposed to an extraterritorial corridor for Nakhichevan. It inaugurated a consulate in Kapan in late 2022. In Kopyrkin’s words, Russian diplomats have established “working relations” with the Iranian consulate “including on the development of interaction in the Moscow-Yerevan-Tehran triangle.”
During and shortly after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia deployed troops to Syunik to help the Armenian military defend the strategic region against possible Azerbaijani attacks. In recent weeks, Moscow has withdrawn Russian soldiers from Syunik as well as other sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border at Yerevan’s request.