Dmitry Peskov said Putin could meet Pashinian on the sidelines of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) summits.
“If Mr. Pashinian travels there -- and they expect him like everyone else -- then there will be a great opportunity to talk,” Peskov told reporters.
Pashinian did not attend the last CIS summit held in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek in early October, underscoring Yerevan’s growing tensions with Moscow. He went on to boycott last week’s summit of the leaders of Russia and other ex-Soviet states making up the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Pashinian’s office has not yet clarified whether he will fly to Saint Petersburg next month. Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, suggested earlier this week that the Armenian leader will not skip the upcoming summits.
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian said on Tuesday that Pashinian should attend them because Armenia will be taking over the rotating presidency of the EEU, a Russian-led trade bloc.
In recent weeks, the Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly accused Pashinian of “ruining” Russian-Armenian relations and reorienting his country towards the West. For its part, Yerevan says that Moscow has failed to honor its security commitments to Armenia.