Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian again criticized the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on Monday for not openly siding with Armenia in its border dispute with Azerbaijan.
Russia has again accused Western powers of undercutting the OSCE Minsk Group and trying to hijack Russian efforts to broker peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Russia on Friday accused Western powers of seeking to sideline it, hijack Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks and use the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in their standoff with Moscow over Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have pledged to continue jointly seeking an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the OSCE Minsk Group co-headed by their countries and the United States.
Special envoys of Turkey and Armenia held in Moscow on Friday the first round of negotiations on normalizing relations between the two neighboring states.
The Russian Foreign Ministry slammed Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian on Friday for his reported claim that Russia sought to restore Azerbaijani control over Nagorno-Karabakh through peace proposals made before last year’s war.
Senior Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani officials were meeting in Moscow on Wednesday to try to hammer out final details of an anticipated agreement on restoring transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The Kremlin has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised to organize fresh talks between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan one year after brokering a ceasefire that stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
About 22,000 Armenians were granted Russian citizenship in the first half of this year, according to Russian immigration authorities.
Senior government officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan began on Wednesday a new round of Russian-mediated negotiations on restoring economic links between their countries.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Friday accused Iran and Armenia of using Azerbaijani territory for drug trafficking, prompting swift rebuttals from both neighbors.
Iran strongly opposes any redrawing of borders in the South Caucasus, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday.
Russia expressed readiness on Thursday to help Armenia and Turkey normalize their relations, saying that would boost peace and stability in the region.
Armenia’s new Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan accused Azerbaijan of not fully complying with a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh as he met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday.
Supplying weapons to other countries is Moscow’s sovereign right, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday when asked to comment on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s call to stop arming Armenia.
Russia will take steps to ensure its national security if Turkey opens a military base in Armenia, the Kremlin said on Friday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated on Wednesday that international mediators should not rush to broker an Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.
A senior pro-government lawmaker insisted on Friday that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has not secretly agreed to cede any Armenian territory to Azerbaijan as part of a demarcation of the border between the two states proposed by Russia.
Russia offered on Wednesday to help Armenia and Azerbaijan demarcate their border some portions of which have been the scene of a military standoff over the past week.
Russia said on Tuesday that it keeps trying to ease tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan as troops from the two South Caucasus countries remained locked in a border standoff threatening to reignite the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
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