Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Tuesday described as “very productive” his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin which was held in Sochi on Monday.
“We discussed a very broad range of issues and it was a very productive meeting,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). He declined to elaborate.
Pashinian confirmed that the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh was also on the agenda of the talks with Putin. “It was a general discussion. We didn’t really go into details,” he said.
In his opening remarks at the talks, the Armenian premier, who took office on May 8, reaffirmed his commitment to maintaining “strategic allied relations” with Russia. “I can assure you that there is basically a consensus on this issue in Armenia, and nobody has cast doubt and, I think, will cast doubt on the strategic importance of Russian-Armenian relations,” he said.
For his part, Putin told Pashinian that he regards Armenia as “our closest partner and ally in the region” and hopes Russian-Armenia ties will “develop as steadily as has been the case until now.”
Neither the Kremlin nor the Armenian government issued any statements on the results of the Putin-Pashinian encounter which took place in the presence of other senior Armenian and Russian officials.
The two leaders met in the Russian Black Sea city just hours before a summit of the five former Soviet republics making up the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
Like other leaders of the Yelk alliance, Pashinian criticized last year Armenia’s membership in this and another Russian-led bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). However, he made clear that he will not withdraw from the EEU and the CSTO after massive street protests organized by him led to the resignation of the country’s longtime leader, Serzh Sarkisian, on April 23.
“It’s an interesting format,” Pashinian said when asked about his impressions of the EEU summit in Sochi. “It was very interesting.”
RUSSIA -- Participants walk along an embankment after a Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting in Sochi, May 14, 2018
While in Sochi, Pashinian also held separate meetings with the presidents of Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
An aide to the Armenian premier, Ruben Rubinian, insisted that he managed to “dispel possible concerns” of Russia and other EEU member states regarding the new Armenian government. None of them actually voiced such concerns, he said.
“Both in separate meetings and at the general [EEU] session, we reaffirmed our positions voiced before and after Mr. Pashinian was elected prime minister,” Rubinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
“That doesn’t mean there are no problems [within the EEU] or that those problems must not be solved,” he said. “The key thing is that we gave our partners and allies no reason to doubt or to be concerned about Armenia’s continued adherence to agreements signed in the past.”