Shift in Armenia s foreign policy not threat to Moscow - Tigran  Balayan

ArmInfo.A seismic shift in Armenia's foreign policy that has seen it forge closer relations with  the European Union is not a threat to Moscow, the country's ambassador in Brussels insisted amid increasingly tense relations with the Kremlin.

"Armenia's geography means it historically and practically has so  many connections with Russia that only phantasmagoric people think  Armenia would take the suicidal step of trying to undermine Russian  interests in the region," Tigran Balayan, the country's envoy to the  EU, told POLITICO in an interview.

"The Armenia-EU relationship is based on Armenian national interests.  Currently, our national interest demands that we have exemplary  relations with the EU and all its member states," he said.

"That doesn't exclude bilateral good relations with Russia, and  that's something we want to explain to our Russian colleagues," he  added.

Earlier this month, at a meeting between Armenian Prime Minister  Nikol Pashinyan, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen  and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the EU unveiled a ?270  million package designed to help bolster the economic independence  and resilience of the former Soviet republic. Russia currently has an  effective monopoly over Armenia's energy networks, railways and  imports of key goods like grain.

While Russia has also maintained control over Armenia's borders for  the past three decades, relations have soured in recent years, with  the Kremlin refusing to back the country in its long-running conflict  with neighboring Azerbaijan. Moscow deployed more than a thousand  peacekeepers to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh following a  war in 2020, but its troops refused to intervene last September when  Azerbaijani forces launched an offensive and sparked the mass exodus  of its 100,000 Armenian residents.

Days prior to the attack, Pashinyan told POLITICO that the country  could no longer rely on Russia for security and praised Western  nations for helping bring about democratic reforms.

Armenia has now suspended its membership of the Moscow-led CSTO  military alliance, invited U.S.  troops to stage joint drills in the  country, and depends on an EU civilian monitoring mission to deter  clashes along its tense border with Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, it has  stepped up efforts to avoid falling foul of Western sanctions on  Russia, working to prevent the export of sensitive goods that could  be used by Moscow's forces occupying Ukraine.

But, according to Balayan, who heads Armenia's EU delegation, that  shouldn't be seen as a "pivot to the West" at the expense of Russia.

"When we are talking about these issues with Russian diplomats, and I  tell them what we are doing, I've never received any counterargument  as to why we shouldn't - how European and American investments into  Armenia's economy could harm Russian interests," he said.

Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took aim at  Armenia's growing ties with Europe and the U.S., accusing the  government of "deliberately leading things to the collapse of  relations with the Russian Federation."