Russia to continue delivering weapons to Armenia
David Tonoyan, Armenia’s minister of defence, has announced that Russia will continue to deliver weapons to Armenia as per the agreement.
Tonoyan emphasised that Armenia is not only buying weapons from Russia and members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), but from other countries as well.
The matter regarding Russia supposedly halting its weapon deliveries to Armenia first appeared on the Kommersant news portal:
“According to two top managers from two defence enterprises in the Russian Federation, the fulfillment of the second package of contracts, under which Armenia is to receive 100 million dollars in credit, is now ‘in question’.”
A spat emerged between Yerevan and Moscow after Armenia recently opened a criminal case against the secretary general of the CSTO, Yuri Khachaturov.
Moscow is not happy about the criminal case launched against Khachaturov. Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, has accused the Armenian authorities of persecuting its political predecessors. It was within this context that rumors emerged of Russia potentially not continuing the contract.
However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia (MFA) has given a rather diplomatic response which, it would seem, has calmed Moscow:
“We are following the international reactions concerning the current internal processes in Armenia regarding the formation of a just state and judiciary and the fight against corruption, which [are all] internal, political priorities of the state. These processes are not connected to Armenia’s foreign policy and should not cause discrepancies.”
Tigran Balayan, the press secretary of Armenia’s MFA, has also announced that one of Armenia’s foreign political priorities is the ‘deepening of Armenian-Russian allied relations’.
Afterwards, the deputy minister of defence of Russia, Aleksandr Fomin, said that the information regarding Russia possibly ceasing its delivery of weapons to Armenia was ‘incorrect’ and that they would continue.
