Over-reliance on one source of security simply doesn’t work – Vice Speaker of Parliament

For almost three decades, Armenia's security was dependent on one source of security, namely Russia and the security organizations connected to it, Vice Speaker of Parliament Ruben Rubinyan said at a panel discussion during the Yerevan Dialogue 2025 forum.

“Previous governments, and also our government before the war of 2020, thought that this is enough to guarantee Armenia's security and Armenia's territorial integrity. But as events unfolded, it became clear that over-reliance on one source of security or one provider of security simply doesn't work. Because when the time comes and the security organizations or countries that have obligations to intervene don't or don't want to. We can have debates about that, but the fact is that it didn't happen. And as a result, we have had ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, we have had Azerbaijan occupying around 200 square kilometers of sovereign Armenian territory, and it became evident that Armenia needs to diversify its security strategy, but not only security strategy. And Armenia has adopted now a policy of balancing, balance and balancing, which means that Armenia strives for deeper integration with the EU, for more cooperation with the US, with France, with India. We are very happy to see that security cooperation with India is getting deeper and deeper. But regarding EU aspirations, those may be connected to security, but not only. It is our conviction that the Armenian people have always strived to be closer to Europe. Armenians are culturally and politically European. And Armenia has embarked on a path of closer integration with the EU for decades now,” he said.