YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Armenia is reorienting its foreign policy towards the West at the expense of its long-standing alliance with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published on December 28.
“Unfortunately, official Yerevan, succumbing to the persuasion of Westerners, is trying to reform its foreign policy line,” he told the official Russian news agency TASS. ”It is exchanging the time-tested alliance with Moscow not even for concrete help from the West but only for vague promises.”
Lavrov was particularly concerned about what he described as Armenia’s deepening ties with NATO.
“Yerevan has been developing cooperation with NATO and its individual member countries lately,” he said. “This year, Armenia took part in several dozen events with the alliance. It continues to modernize its armed forces according to NATO standards, and the republic’s military personnel are undergoing training in a number of NATO member states. This cannot fail to cause us concern.”
“I hope that Yerevan is aware that deepening interaction with the alliance leads to a loss of sovereignty in the field of national defense and security,” he warned.
Earlier this week, a senior NATO official praised Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government for moving away from Russia and seeking “more cooperation and political dialogue” with NATO.
