YEREVAN, JULY 7, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Armenian parliament Armen Ashotyan has commented on Armenia’s participation in the upcoming NATO summit.
“Expert and political circles are discussing the planned visit of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to Brussels, to participate in the event dedicated to the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan on the sidelines of the NATO summit. The Armenia-NATO partnership has a long and successful history. It has never been implemented towards Russia and at the expense of our allied commitments within the CSTO. However, let’s remember that NATO is not only the collective West, led by the US, but also Turkey, which has always obstructed through various channels the discussion and solution of issues related to Armenia,” Ashotyan said on Facebook.
He mentioned that he is referring to the issue of Armenia’s participation in the NATO summits.
“By always receiving invitations to participate, we have rarely accepted it, taking into account NATO’s stance on regional conflicts in the declaration which are being adopted in the conclusion of the summits, which doesn’t differentiate frozen conflicts, and as a rule prioritizes territorial integrity. It is clear that the NK conflict is fundamentally different from all other conflicts, and the geopolitical manipulation of this issue is unacceptable for us, as well as the imperative on territorial integrity in the stances of NATO,” he said.
With this said, Ashotyan argues that the issue of Armenia’s participation at the upcoming NATO summit and visiting Brussels and discussing the importance of relations with the EU after the government change must be differentiated.
“If the final document of NATO will contain very drastic terming about issues of interest for us, then I would recommend to not take part in the summit, and to organize direct contact of the new government with the EU in another time period and occasion, not combining the NATO event and the Armenia-EU agenda,” he said.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
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