Russia warns Armenia against ‘trying to sit on two chairs’

MOSCOW

Russia warned Armenia on Wednesday against attempts “to sit on two chairs,” saying “this has never done anyone any good.”

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow on a declaration adopted at the Strategic Future of Armenia and Europe Forum demanding Armenia to withdraw from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the West is trying to separate Armenia from Russia.

Moscow considers recent statements and steps of the Armenian leadership, including the refusal of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to participate in the upcoming session of the CSTO meeting in Minsk, remarks on the "so-called European integration" or "non-aligned" status of Armenia, the expansion of supplies of Western weapons to the republic and Armenia’s sudden friendship with Ukraine as "links in one chain, a chain of enslavement," she said.

Zakharova said Armenia is on the one side asking Russia to preserve advantages which it receives from cooperation with Moscow and membership in the Eurasian Economic Union while taking steps that harm bilateral ties.

"If this is an attempt to sit on two chairs, this has never done anyone any good," she warned.

She said the Armenian media manipulated the mass conscious, mixing the issues of the CSTO’s efficiency and the Karabakh settlement, which have completely different dimensions, to undermine the positions of the organization.

Zakharova noted that the US has already separated the European Union from Russia and that led to economic problems in Europe.

Following Western recommendations, Armenia risks being cut from further communications in the region, including from the project of the Zangezur corridor, she said.

She refuted Armenia's statements claiming that it made a proposal to Russia addressing problems arising in connection with Yerevan’s ratification of the Rome Statute and its decision to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"During the bilateral consultations, the Russian side moved forward proposals to go the way of engaging the ICC mechanisms without ratifying the Rome Statute. There is such practice. Unfortunately, our proposed compromises were ignored...Yerevan decided on the ratification for purely political reasons," she said.

On Oct. 3, the Armenian parliament voted to ratify the Rome Statute, placing it under the jurisdiction of the ICC.

The move drew criticism from Russia due to the court’s arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of Russia, accusing them of the “war crime of unlawful deportation of children” from Ukraine to Russia.

Moscow argues that it evacuated children from war zones to save their lives upon the agreement of their legal representatives.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted in 1998 in the Italian capital, is the treaty that established the ICC.