The Russian news agency TASS on September 4 published a lengthy article about a conversation with an unnamed "diplomatic source" about the Kremlin's position on Yerevan's foreign policy.
"Moscow is extremely dissatisfied with the latest public statements of the Armenian leadership, including the statements of the Prime Minister of Armenia in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the comment of the Armenian Foreign Ministry on August 31," the agency's interlocutor said.
To remind that Nikol Pashinyan in the above-mentioned interview did not rule out the possibility of Moscow's complete withdrawal from the South Caucasus region, as happened twice in the 20th century. The Armenian Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, criticized the inaction of the Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh against the background of Azerbaijan’s violations of the requirements of the tripartite agreement of November 9, 2020.
“In fact, they are trying to artificially eject Russia from the South Caucasus, using Yerevan as a means to achieve this goal. Russia, as the closest neighbor and friend of Armenia, does not intend to leave the region [...] Armenia, too, should not become an instrument of the West to force Russia out," TASS quoted an unnamed source as saying.
Touching upon the issue of the Karabakh conflict, the interlocutor of the agency said in particular: "Yerevan for a long time kept under its control a part of the actual Azerbaijani territory."
He also expressed dissatisfaction with Yerevan's position in terms of interaction with the CSTO. According to an unnamed diplomat, Yerevan "does not fully use the potential of the CSTO, which, in particular, was manifested in the refusal to agree to the deployment of the mission of the organization and the choice instead of the ineffective EU mission."
Meanwhile, on the same day, Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan, answering a question from News.am about problems in Russian-Armenian relations, said: “We raised these problems many times, in particular in September 2022, when the sovereign territory of Armenia was attacked by Azerbaijan and we expected a more adequate reaction from both the Russian Federation and the CSTO.”
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