Four days after meeting with him in Moscow, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian telephoned his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday for further discussions on Russian-Armenian commercial ties.
In a short statement, Pashinian’s press service said he and Medvedev talked about “cooperation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and bilateral relations.” It gave no details.
A Russian government statement said the phone conversation took place “at the initiative of the Armenian side.” It said the two premiers “continued discussions on pressing issues of Russian-Armenian commercial and investment-related cooperation” which were on the agenda of their Moscow talks held on Friday. They also touched upon “integration interaction within the EEU,” the statement added without elaborating.
Official press releases on Pashinian’s January 25 meeting with Medvedev were also short on specifics. They indicated only that the two men focused on economic issues. The Russian government also noted that “the meeting took place at the request of the Armenian side.”
While in Moscow, Pashinian also visited the headquarters of the EEU’s executive body, the Eurasian Economic Commission. Speaking there, he praised the EEU and reaffirmed Armenia’s continued membership in the Russian-led trade bloc.
Pashinian did not meet with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during his latest trip to the Russian capital. The two men most recently held talks there on December 27. On December 31, Russia’s Gazprom giant announced a 10 percent increase in the wholesale price of Russian natural gas imported by Armenia.
Earlier this month, the Armenian government began negotiating with Armenia’s Gazprom-owned gas distribution network in hopes of keeping its internal tariffs unchanged. Pashinian has repeatedly expressed confidence that the existing gas prices set for Armenian households and corporate consumers will not rise this year.