Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Vladimir Putin to Hold Bilateral Talks in Moscow

YEREVAN — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will not attend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a fifth term as president scheduled for Tuesday, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan said on Monday.

Simonyan indicated that Pashinyan will fly instead to Moscow on Wednesday to chair a summit of the leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). He said Armenia cannot skip that meeting because it currently holds the rotating presidency of the trade bloc.

Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, clarified, meanwhile, that the Kremlin has not formally invited Pashinyan or other foreign leaders to the inauguration ceremony. Only the Moscow-based ambassadors of foreign states have received such invitations, he said.

The Armenian premier said late last month that he has not yet decided whether to attend it. The decision depends on “many circumstances,” he said vaguely.

Ushakov also announced that Putin and Pashinyan will hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the EEU summit in Moscow.

“In recent times, problematic issues have accumulated in relations between Russia and Armenia, which, as we expect, will be openly discussed by the two leaders,” the official told reporters. Putin’s meeting with Pashinyan will therefore be “very meaningful,” he said.

Over the past year or so, Yerevan has boycotted high-level meetings and military exercises held by another Russian-led alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), in what Pashinyan described in February as an effective suspension of Armenia’s CSTO membership. The boycotts are part of a broader rift between the two longtime allies