The summit scheduled for December 25 was expected to be held in Yerevan at the end of Armenia’s one-year rotating presidency in the trade bloc comprising five ex-Soviet states. It will take place in Saint Petersburg instead. The Armenian Foreign Ministry downplayed the change of the venue last week, saying that it was decided by the leaders of the EEU member states.
Pashinian gave a different explanation, however, saying that not all of those leaders are welcome in Armenia.
“I personally found it inexpedient to hold the event in Armenia because unfortunately, due to circumstances known to you, not all members of the EEU Supreme Economic Council are desirable for Armenia,” he said, answering a question from an opposition parliamentarian.
Pashinian did not name anyone. It was not clear whether he referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. The latter provoked a fresh diplomatic spat between Minsk and Yerevan earlier this year with pro-Azerbaijani comments made during a visit to Azerbaijan.
Armenian analysts and opposition figures have suggested that the authorities in Yerevan refused to host the EEU summit because of their reluctance to receive Putin more than one year after controversially ratifying the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC) also known as the Rome Statute. Earlier in 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin over war crimes allegedly committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Pashinian on Wednesday again declined to explicitly say whether the Russian leader will risk being arrested in case of visiting Armenia. He complained that Moscow rejected an Armenian proposal to sign a bilateral agreement that would presumably make Putin immune to the ICC’s arrest warrants.
The Russian Foreign Ministry insisted, meanwhile, that Yerevan’s acceptance of the Hague court’s jurisdiction “directly damages Armenian-Russian relations.” “And not only symbolically but also quite practically,” the ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, stressed during a news briefing.
The ratification of the Rome Statute highlighted Armenia’s deepening rift with Russia accused by Yerevan of not honoring, along with other CSTO member states, its security commitments to the South Caucasus nation. Pashinian boycotted another CSTO summit last week in line with the effective suspension early this year of Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led military alliance.
Speaking after the November 28 summit, Putin expressed hope that Armenia “will return to full-scale work within the framework of this organization.” He dismissed Yerevan’s criticism of the CSTO, linking it to “internal political processes in Armenia” and Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh. Putin also denied any “external aggression against Armenia itself.”
“The situation related to Karabakh has nothing to do with this,” countered Pashinian. He argued that he froze the Armenian membership after what he sees as the CSTO’s failure to properly respond to Azerbaijani attacks on Armenian border areas carried out after the 2020 war in Karabakh.
Pashinian further said that Armenia’s renewed participation in the CSTO’s activities is becoming “increasingly difficult, if not impossible.” But he again did not say when he will formally pull his country out of the alliance.