“There is no such issue on Armenia’s agenda,” said Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council. “And if there is no such issue, my position is that Armenia is a sovereign, democratic state and must remain as such.”
In a televised interview broadcast earlier this week, Lukashenko predicted that Moscow will cobble together a bigger “union of sovereign states” with common defense, national security and economic systems over the next 10 to 15 years.
He said it will comprise not only Russia and Belarus but also Central Asian states, Armenia and even Ukraine. Armenia will join the union because it “has nowhere to go,” claimed the long-serving Belarusian strongman.
The remarks provoked a storm of criticism in the South Caucasus nation. The Armenian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned Belarus’ ambassador in Yerevan and said Lukashenko’s claims “have nothing to do with Armenia and its foreign policy.”
Lawmakers representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party attacked Lukashenko in even stronger terms. Pashinian joined in the chorus of condemnations on Wednesday, recalling Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown on opposition protesters following a disputed presidential election held in Belarus in 2020.
“There were [similar] events in Armenia. But did you see me walk in the streets with an assault rifle?” Pashinian said on the parliament floor.
Russia and Belarus signed a Union State treaty in 1999 and have been negotiating on and off since then. So far Moscow has not publicly expressed a desire to expand the union.
Armenia is already a member of two other Russian-led alliances of ex-Soviet states: the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union.