President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Friday said he will visit Armenia, despite the recent ratification by the Armenian Parliament, of the statute governing the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader.
Russia has warned on Armenia about ratifying the ICC treaty, known as the Rome Statute, with some officials in Moscow saying that such a move would cause serious damage to Yerevan-Moscow relations.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan pushed ahead with the ratification, which the Parliament debated and voted on last week.
Putin said that he and Pashinyan have exchanged invitations to visit their respective capitals. He said he didn’t plans to travel to Yerevan yet because Pashinyan is now busy coping with “the tragedy of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians.”
“He probably has no time for traveling right now,” Putin told reporters after the Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital. “When the situation [in Armenia] normalizes I will visit them and [Pashinian] will come [to Moscow.]”
Putin stressed that he and Pashinyan “remain in touch” and that their governments keep working together on their bilateral agenda. He went on to play down Pashinyan’s decision not to attend the CIS summit, attributing it to “quite understandable circumstances.”
“I’m not going to talk about them. You had better ask the Armenian prime minister. As far as I understand, Armenia is not leaving the CIS,” added the Russian leader.
During the CIS Summit, Putin said that he was willing to host talks between Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, with whom the Russian leader met on the margins of the meeting.
“On the agenda is the preparation of a peace agreement to end this protracted conflict,” Putin said. “And the Russian side is, of course, ready to provide our partners with all possible assistance in this. In particular, we stand ready to organize negotiations in Moscow, if necessary, in any format. For starters, [talks between] foreign ministers, experts.”
Source : Asbarez
