Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed confidence that Armenia’s relations with Russia will grow even closer when he held fresh talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday.
“Of course relations between Armenia and Russia are special,” he said at the start of the talks held in the Kremlin. “I am sure that these relations will remain special, become more special.”
Pashinian flew to Moscow to not only meet with Putin but also attend the opening ceremony of the 2018 football World Cup hosted by Russia. He is among foreign leaders invited by Putin to watch the ceremony and the first game of the tournament at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium on Thursday.
The two men met for the first time in Sochi on May 14, six days after the Armenian parliament elected Pashinian prime minister. Putin was the first foreign leader to congratulate him on becoming Armenia’s new leader after weeks of massive protests organized by him. He received assurances that Armenia will remain allied to Russia during Pashinian’s tenure.
Putin on Wednesday again stressed “the strategic character” of Russian-Armenian ties and the fact that Russia is the South Caucasus state’s leading trading partner. “Last year our trade grew by more than 30 percent and its growth has also been strong this year,” he said, adding that it is primarily driven by rising Armenian agricultural exports to Russia.
Putin attributed that to Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a Russian-led trade bloc comprising five ex-Soviet republics.
Pashinian criticized Armenia’s accession to the EEU membership and even called for its withdrawal from the bloc as recently as last November. However, he made clear that he will not pull his country out of the EEU or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) after the protest movement led by him brought down the previous Armenian government.
The 43-year-old premier reiterated in Moscow that he is committed to further deepening bilateral ties. “Everyone in Armenia and Russia hopes that these relations will be developing more effectively … on the basis of respect for the interests and sovereignty of our countries,” he said. He praised the “positive and constructive dialogue” between Moscow and Yerevan.
In a statement on the meeting, Pashinian’s press office said the two leaders discussed ways of expanding bilateral cooperation in “political, economic, military-technical and other spheres.” “Regional issues of mutual interest” were also the agenda, it said, presumably referring to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Incidentally, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who is also visiting Moscow, met with Putin earlier in the day. Officials in Yerevan have said that there are no plans to organize a first-ever meeting of Aliyev and Pashinian during their trips to the Russian capital.
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