Armenian FM calls calls to be careful in wording, especially when assessing Yerevan-Moscow relations

ArmInfo. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan called for being as careful as possible in wording, especially when it comes to relations between Yerevan and Moscow.

Thus, at today's joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister, in response to a journalist's remark that Armenia criticizes Russia and the CSTO at the highest level, but, nevertheless, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, after a short-term boycott, still took part in the EAEU summit in St.  Petersburg, does this mean that Yerevan has turned from the European vector to the Russian one, and will RA join the Minsk documents, Mirzoyan first apologized, and then suggested to pay more attention to the wording.

" I think that in politics, and in this case in particular, when they talk about Armenia-Russia relations, it is necessary to be as attentive as possible to the wording, and not be guided by primitive assessments. You said that recently Armenia has been criticizing Russia at the highest level. I think I quoted correctly. Let me ask you to give examples when Armenia criticizes Russia at the highest level. It is another matter that   we talked about different problems," the minister continued.

As an example, he cited criticism of state television channels in two countries. "But the statement that the RA criticizes Russia at the highest level is not quite correct, at least in my memory there are no episodes corresponding to such a description at the moment.

This does not mean that there were no problems, and we never hid them, which we talked about, and they primarily related to bilateral relations, and Armenia's expectations within the framework of the CSTO, their implementation or non-realization, they existed when the borders of the Republic of Armenia were violated, the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia came under occupation, and in Nagorno- Karabakh there were actions or cases of inaction of peacekeepers, and many other cases, some economic issues. Were there problems, were there expectations from the CSTO? Yes they were. Was the question raised due to their lack of implementation? Yes, they did. How many years ago we talked about the need to increase the effectiveness of the CSTO. Based on this, we kept our participation in the CSTO at the level we considered to be in line with the processes going on in the CSTO at that time or with the activities of the organization itself," Mirzoyan added.

At the same time, he recalled that members of the organization are obliged to protect each other's borders.  "Our borders were violated, and we saw that the organization did not rush to protect these borders. That's all, if only briefly, although the problem is much more complicated," he said.  Regarding Pashinyan's participation in the EAEU summit, the minister said in particular: "I don't think you have ever heard about the same degree of failure to fulfill expectations from the EAEU as from the CSTO, and what I just talked about. I think that in the case of Armenia, the EAEU continues to operate effectively.  Although the formulations may be conditional and there are also problems here, you will not find formulations similar to the case with the CSTO," he said, adding that Pashinyan's participation in the EAEU summit does not mean that Armenia will abandon the European vector of development.