Mikael Agasandian, the head of a Russian Foreign Ministry department on ex-Soviet states, Armenia said should therefore unfreeze its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and avoid leaving another Russian-led bloc, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
“Ultimately, there are no alternatives to the CSTO and Russia as guarantors of the republic's stability,” Agasandian told the RIA Novosti news agency. “At this stage, the doors for Armenia's return to full cooperation in the CSTO are open, and mutual obligations within the organization remain unchanged.”
“You don’t have to be an economic or political expert to see the obvious: the [Eurasian] union is beneficial to Yerevan, and it is largely thanks to it that Armenia’s economic growth rate in is demonstrating impressive positive dynamics which few can boast of,” he said.
“As for the course taken by Yerevan towards closer cooperation with the European Union and NATO, here our partners have obviously fallen into the Westerners’ trap promising them investments, technologies and a bright future,” he said. “They [Western powers] have already used this approach many times in the post-Soviet space. And we all know and see very well what came of it,” added the ethnic Armenian official.
Adding to mounting tensions with Moscow, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced early this year the effective suspension of Armenia’s membership in the CSTO accused by him of ignoring his administration’s requests for military and political support in the face of Azerbaijani attacks on Armenian border areas. Pashinian afterwards promised to eventually withdraw his country from the Russian-led military alliance.
Russian officials have blamed the West for those moves. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin claimed in June that Western powers will also eventually demand Armenia’s withdrawal from another Russian-led bloc.
Around the same time, Pashinian’s political team fueled renewed debate on Armenia’s possible bid to join the European Union. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk warned later in June that the South Caucasus nation will lose tariff-free access to the Russian market and other economic privileges granted by Moscow if it does seek to join the EU.
Russia accounted last year for over 35 percent of Armenia’s foreign trade, compared with the EU’s 13 percent share. It absorbed 40 percent of Armenian exports worth $8.4 billion.
Russia is also Armenia’s principal supplier of natural gas. The price of Russian gas for the country has long been set well below international market-based levels.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien praised Pashinian’s “brave” foreign policy when he spoke during a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing late last month. The United States, he said, is helping Yerevan “break with Russia,” including by trying to broker an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal. O’Brien reiterated his earlier statement that the deal would facilitate a new trade route from Central Asia to Turkey and thus ease Armenia’s economic dependence on Russia.
