The Russian foreign ministry on Wednesday slammed NATO for attempting to cut off Armenia and Azerbaijan from their alliance and cooperation with Russia.
By inviting Azerbaijan and Armenia to the NATO summit, the West wants to cut them off from cooperation with Russia, Andrey Nastasin, a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson said at a press briefing on Wednesday, saying this is “another attempt by the Americans to spread their destructive influence in all regions of the world.”
Amid growing tensions between Yerevan and Moscow, it was announced last week that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has invited Armenia and Azerbaijan to a NATO Summit in Washington later this month. Armenia’s foreign ministry said that Yerevan has accepted the invitation and will attend. Baku thus far has not signaled that it will participate.
The spokesperson also took aim at the Baltic countries for advancing NATO’s agenda, saying those nations are “implementing a destructive policy in the South Caucasus.
This comes as Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan visited Estonia earlier this week and later met with other Baltic state leaders in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Nastasin, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, said the Baltic countries “are doing their utmost to ‘cut off’ Armenia from Russia, remove it from our shared integration mechanisms, including the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and integrating [Armenia] with a Euro-Atlantic perspective.”
He also went on to accuse NATO of arming Armenia assisting Yerevan in rebuilding its defense sector, while NATO-member diplomats visit Baku to cultivate relations.
Nastasin said that NATO’s approaches are further deepening the “tensions between the two republics, do not contribute to the Armenian-Azerbaijani talks and provoke an arms race in the region.”
He reiterated Moscow’s position that the universal basis for the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains the tripartite agreements of 2020 and 2022, adding that Moscow is convinced that stability and security in the South Caucasus can and should be ensured by the countries of the region—and within the framework of the principle of regional accountability.
“Imposing of their ‘prescriptions’ by Euro-Atlantic officials, who are far from understanding the nuances of the region, will lead to new dividing lines in the South Caucasus and will have devastating consequences not only for the region, but also for pan-Eurasian security. We hope that Baku and Yerevan understand it well,” said Nastasin.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said his country continues to regard Armenia as an ally, citing the continuous and rapid growth of trade between the two countries.
“We proceed with the fact that Armenia is our ally,” Overchuk told Russian media. “And we observe the fact that we have very positive economic relations. Our [2023] trade turnover with Armenia is $7.3 billion. If we look at the statistics for January-April [2024,] it doubled compared with [the same period of] last year.”
Overchuk went on to praise Yerevan’s “very constructive contribution” to the Eurasian Economic Union, the Russian-led trade bloc comprising Russia, Armenia and three other former Soviet states. Earlier this year, Armenia assumed the EEU’s rotating presidency.
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