Not all members of the Supreme EAEU Council are desirable for Armenia, PM Pashinyan

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS.  Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan personally considered it inappropriate to hold the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council session in Armenia.

"I want to say directly that I personally found it inappropriate to hold the event in the Republic of Armenia, because, unfortunately, due to circumstances known to you, not all members of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council are desirable for the Republic of Armenia," Pashinyan said during a Parliamentary Q&A session with Cabinet members.

Referring to Haystan faction deputy Anna Grigoryan's question about the correlation between the ratification of the Rome Statute and the possible arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister said: "When we ratified the Rome Statute, we were in communication with our Russian partners at that time. We used our agreement with the US as an example. We have a bilateral agreement with the US, which highlights certain aspects of our relations with them within the framework of the Rome Statute. We offered the same mechanism to Russia, but for some reason, Russia did not agree to it."

Earlier, Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov had announced that the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting would take place on December 25 in St. Petersburg, Russia, chaired by Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, as Armenia holds the EAEU chairmanship in 2024. He noted that the meeting is being organized in Russia at the request of the Armenian side. 

The Armenian Foreign Ministry clarified that the regulations within the EAEU do not stipulate that the sessions of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council must necessarily be held in the member state presiding over the EAEU's statutory bodies.