Armenian Prime Minister Will Not Attend CIS Summit with Putin — Country Is Moving Away from Moscow

Author:
Liza Brovko
Date:

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has decided not to participate in the informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia.

He wrote about this on Facebook.

According to him, he received a positive test for coronavirus on December 23, so he worked online the following days. And although the second test was negative, after consulting with colleagues, Pashinyan decided not to go to the summit of CIS leaders anyway.

Nikol Pashinyan is also still considering whether to participate in the meeting of the Supreme Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Union, scheduled for December 26.

Over the past few years, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan has been trying to distance himself from Moscow and its influence, in particular, often refusing to participate in various organizations and groups controlled by Russia.

For example, Pashinyan accused the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which is actually controlled by the Russian Federation, of threatening the countryʼs sovereignty, and the Investigative Committee of Armenia reported an attempted coup in the country, the preparations for which were being carried out in Russia.

Pashinyan has previously repeatedly said that the CSTO failed to fulfill its obligations to Yerevan during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, which resulted in Azerbaijan regaining its territories. Because of this, in June he even announced his intention to withdraw from the CSTO.

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