YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Russia’s ambassador in Yerevan met with Levon Ter-Petrosian on Tuesday, February 18, five days after the former Armenian president seemingly praised neighboring Iran for opposing an Azerbaijani land corridor that would pass through Armenia.
Ter-Petrosian’s spokesman, Arman Musinyan, said he discussed with Sergei Kopyrkin Russian-Armenian relations as well as “issues related to Armenia’s internal situation and regional security.” Musinyan gave no other details of their conversation.
The Russian Embassy in Yerevan issued no statement on the meeting held at Ter-Petrosian’s private residence.
Ter-Petrosian stood for close ties between Armenia and Russia during and after his 1991-1998 presidency. Like other opposition figures, some of the 80-year-old ex-president’s associates have criticized as reckless Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ongoing efforts to reorient the South Caucasus country towards the West which have raised serious tensions in Russian-Armenian relations.
Pashinyan says that he is “diversifying” Armenian foreign and security policy in response to Moscow’s failure to honor its security commitments to Yerevan. As part of that policy change, he has frozen Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and effectively pledged to seek its eventual accession to the European Union.
Ter-Petrosian, who rarely makes public appearances, received another foreign ambassador, Iran’s Mehdi Sobhani, on February 13. According to Musinian, he “expressed his admiration” for Sobhani’s statements made at a February 6 news conference in Yerevan.
