David Shahnazaryan: Armenia should take an active neutral position in Russian-Turkish conflict

 Armenia should take an active neutral position in the Russian-Turkish conflict, David Shahnazaryan, analyst at the Regional Studies Center, said at today's roundtable on Armenia-NATO relations.     

"Actually, we should remain committed to the foreign political line, which is already being conducted, but Yerevan's neutrality should be more active," he stressed.    

The analyst believes that only active neutrality will most likely allow the country to stay on the sidelines of regularly arising new threats to the security and sovereignty of the region's countries. He also qualified Russia's initiative to terminate the Moscow treaty as an attempt to involve Armenia in its conflict with Ankara.        

Moreover, Shahnazaryan thinks it is necessary to restore the balance in the Yerevan-Moscow strategic and partner relations. He said that the relations between Russia and Armenia should be at least relations between a senior ally and a junior one.  

To note, on February 8, members of Russia's State Duma Valery Rashkin and Sergei Obukhov (Communist Party faction) sent a letter to the country's leadership and the Foreign Ministry proposing to denounce the Moscow Treaty of Friendship and Brotherhood signed on March 16, 1921, by the government of Soviet Russia (RSFSR) and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. On February 10, Spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that the Russian Foreign Ministry will study the State Duma members' offer to annul the 1921 treaty of friendship with Turkey.