Russia Criticizes Armenia’s Participation in NATO Summit

MOSCOW — Armenia is putting its security at greater risk by continuing to drift towards the West, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said on Thursday, reacting to Yerevan’s participation in the latest NATO summit.

“Instead of a constructive approach to discussing Yerevan’s concerns, unfortunately, they chose a different path,” Galuzin told the RIA Novosti news agency. “Armenia prefers to increase interaction with NATO or individual members of the alliance, especially in terms of implementing NATO standards, purchasing weapons, or conducting joint combat training activities, not to mention participation in the summit of this military-political bloc taking place in Washington these days. All this can cause nothing but extreme regret.”

“By deepening cooperation at such a pace with those whose goal is the ‘strategic defeat’ of Russia, Yerevan, with its own hands, risks seriously destabilizing the situation in the South Caucasus, including to the detriment of its own security,” he warned. “I think knowledgeable specialists and politicians in Armenia understand the possible costs of such imprudent steps.”

Galuzin, who is in charge of Russia’s relations with other ex-Soviet states, did not specify how closer ties with the United States and other Western powers could undermine Armenia’s national security. The diplomat had already twice warned the Armenian government last month of the consequences of reorienting the South Caucasus towards the West. He insisted that the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is the only viable “mechanism for ensuring Armenia’s security.”