Edward Nalbandian: Armenian-Russian relations not business partnership, but alliance having legal base

 Armenian-Russian relations are not a business partnership, but an alliance having legal base. This is obvious to everyone, and Azerbaijan too, Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian said on the Armenian Public Television on April 13. 

Commenting on the statements by some Russian officials saying that the Russian-Azerbaijan arms deals are just business, the minister said: "I do not know whether to take that argument or not." It is not Azerbaijan that is a CSTO member, it is not in Azerbaijan that the Russian military base is dislocated, and it is not with Azerbaijan that Russia signed dozens of contracts in the fiend of defense and military industry, Nalbandian said. 

The Armenian minister said that the Eurasian Economic Union that was blamed by the Armenian public for its strange stand on Azerbaijan's recent aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh is an economic organization that unlike CSTO does not comment on foreign policy issues. 

"However, the opinions of the CSTO members sometimes vary. Therefore, it is necessary to make more efficient and coordinated efforts to ensure cooperation of the member-states.  We will soon host the meeting of the CSTO foreign ministers and this issue will be voiced again," Nalbandian said.

He said the CSTO's stand on the Karabakh settlement is known: it supports the OSCE Minsk Group's efforts based on the three Helsinki Principles. "Everything is clear, if one of the countries expresses a stand that does not coincide with the stand of the Organization, we remind the consensus-based decisions adopted by the presidents of the member-countries," the diplomat said.

He recalled that Armenia's deputy minister of defense met with Belarus ambassador after the Foreign Ministry of that country made a statement calling for settlement of the Karabakh conflict on the basis of the territorial integrity principle. Afterwards, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Belarus held a phone call.  

"We have not reported the details of the phone call, indeed, but we had an open and frank talk around these issues. And there was a statement that underwent certain corrections," the minister said.