The conference initiated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is due to take place from June 15-16 near the Swiss city of Lucerne. The leaders of many nations have been invited to the summit. No such invitation has been extended to Russia.
The official readouts of Mirzoyan’s call with Kuleba made no mention of the summit. Kuleba said they discussed “the dynamics of the security situation in Ukraine and the South Caucasus.”
“We agreed to hold political consultations between foreign ministries on a wide range of topics of mutual interest,” the top Ukrainian diplomat said in a short statement.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry reported, for its part, that the two ministers, who met in Brussels in December, touched upon bilateral relations and ongoing efforts to resolve Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan. It said Mirzoyan praised Ukrainian for supporting the conflict’s resolution based on mutual recognition of each other’s borders.
Armenian leaders were until recently careful not to openly criticize Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian voiced such criticism during a February visit to Germany, underscoring Yerevan’s deepening rift with Moscow.
Parliament speaker Alen Simonian likewise said Armenia “firmly supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine” when he attended a meeting of his European Union counterparts in Spain last week. Russia condemned Simonian’s speech at the meeting, demanding an explanation from the Armenian parliament.
Moscow also reacted angrily after Pashinian’s wife visited Kyiv last September to attend the annual Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen held there and deliver Armenia’s first humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion.
In October, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, participated in a multilateral peace forum in Malta also initiated by Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry denounced the “demonstrative anti-Russian gesture of official Yerevan.”