RF Ambassador: new Russia-Armenia military-technical cooperation agreements being discussed

ArmInfo. Armenia's joining the Rome Statute does not correspond to Russian-Armenian friendly relations. Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Armenia Sergei Kopyrkin stated in an interview with TASS, answering the question of whether the diplomatic missionis discussing the possibility of organizing future visits to Armenia at the highest level, against the backdrop of this step by Yerevan.

"This issue was not discussed through the embassy. The Russian position, as before, is that Armenia's joining to the Rome Statute, first of all, will not give the advantages that some politicians are talking about here. It is obvious to us that the ICC, with its politicized and completely discredited himself with decisions contrary to international law. In addition, this step, in our opinion, does not correspond to the friendly nature of our bilateral relations, which we told the Armenian side about. Even the very fact that you raised this issue already shows that this decision does not contribute to the strengthening Russian-Armenian interaction," the Russian diplomat emphasized.

Answering the question about how Russia plansto continue developing cooperation in the military- technical sphere against the backdrop of Yerevan's position taken in recent months to increase contacts with the West, including in the security field, Sergei Kopyrkin noted that military-technical cooperation between the two countries has a long tradition and is based on the agreement of June 25, 2013 between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Armenia on the development of military-technical cooperation. "Almost all concluded contracts have either already been completed on time and with high quality, or are at the final stage of implementation. New agreements between our countries in the field of military-technical cooperation are also being discussed. For some individual contracts, there are indeed questions related to the obligations of Russian enterprises to fulfill the state defense order , but these are working issues that are resolved in the dialogue between the relevant departments of Russia and Armenia," the ambassador said.

The diplomat also touched upon the issue of the work of Russian television channels in Armenia.  According to him, there is an agreement between the two states on cooperation in the field of mass communications dated December 30, 2020, and it was within its framework that on December 14 of this year, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of High-Technological Industry of the Republic of Armenia held bilateral consultations. "During the negotiations, the Russian delegation listened to the arguments of their Armenian colleagues and took note of their concerns. It is important that during the consultations the parties agreed on the creation of operational communication channels to resolve possible disagreements in the spirit of friendly relations between our countries," the Russian Ambassador emphasized.