The Russian Foreign Ministry first announced plans for the consulate in May 2023 following Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian officials have since repeatedly visited Syunik’s capital Kapan for that purpose.
A senior Russian diplomat said in June 2024 that Moscow plans to inaugurate the mission “by the end of the year.” However, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said in November that Yerevan has still not given the final green light to its opening.
Zakharova said on Wednesday that the issue was on the agenda of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s January talks with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan as well as diplomatic “consultations” held by their deputies in Moscow on March 20.
“And we expect that by May we will be able to reach concrete agreements on the time frames for the opening of our consular point,” she told a news briefing in Moscow.
Zakharova reported the progress amid Yerevan’s apparent efforts to ease tensions with Moscow which looks set to benefit from geopolitical shifts generated by the new U.S. administration of President Donald Trump. Pashinian told Putin on March 14 that he will attend on May 9 a military parade in the Russian capital dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Later in March, Lavrov and Mirzoyan twice spoke by phone in the space of three days.
Pashinian’s government had minimized diplomatic and other contacts with Moscow and reoriented its foreign policy towards the West since 2022, causing an unprecedented rift between Armenia and Russia.
Armenia - The foreign ministers of Armenia and Iran inaugurate the Iranian consulate in Kapan, October 21, 2022.
Syunik is Armenia’s sole region bordering Iran. Azerbaijani leaders have been demanding that Yerevan open a special corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik. Iran, which inaugurated a consulate in Kapan in late 2022, is strongly opposed to the extraterritorial sought by Baku.
Zakharova said that the Russian diplomatic presence there will boost Syunik’s economic, cultural and other ties with Russia. She also pointed to Iran’s recent ratification of a free-trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a Russian-led trade bloc of which Armenia is a member.
“All this will become a reliable insurance for the dynamic, peaceful, safe development of the Syunik region,” added the official.