Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has announced that he will not be attending an informal Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Saint Petersburg after testing positive for COVID-19.
Pashinyan’s announcement came on Wednesday morning, the same day as the summit.
He said on Facebook that he tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, following which he began working from his residence.
Although he tested negative on Wednesday, Pashinyan said that he decided not to attend the CIS summit after consultations ‘with colleagues’.
‘Tonight I will make a decision about whether or not I will participate in tomorrow’s Eurasian Economic Council (EAEU) Supreme Economic Council session’, Pashinyan wrote.
In another post in the afternoon, Pashinyan stated that he again tested positive and would work ‘with certain restrictions’ until he recovers.
Pashinyan’s spokesperson told RFE/RL that he had taken a COVID-19 test before the trip, stating that this is standard practice ‘when an appropriate protocol or procedure is set by the host country’.
On the same day, the Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that they expect Pashinyan to take part in the EAEU summit ‘via video conference’.
‘This is very important, you know that Armenia is a very important member of the organisation,’ Peskov said.
Previously, Peskov stated that Putin had invited Pashinyan to an informal CIS summit, and ‘is waiting for him, along with other colleagues’. According to TASS, Peskov stated that despite the meeting being informal, its agenda was ‘quite meaningful’.
Warming relations
Tensions between Armenia and Russia have been on the rise since 2022, with Armenia boycotting most CIS and Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) sessions and summits.
However, Armenian officials have been attending more CIS sessions in recent months, having participated in an October summit in Moscow, where they refused to endorse two statements adopted by the organisation’s Foreign Ministers Council.
Armenia however kept participating in EAEU events and took its chairmanship in January 2024. In mid-December, Pashinyan left for Russia, where he chaired the regular session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Moscow.
According to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, Armenia ‘requested’ Thursday’s Supreme Eurasian Economic Council session to be held in November.
The opposition in Armenia linked this decision to issues that could arise as a result of a potential visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Armenia, given Yerevan’s ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2023.
Putin is wanted by the ICC for war crimes committed in Ukraine.
However Pashinyan said that it would be ‘inappropriate’ to hold the EAEU session in Armenia, because not all members are ‘desirable’ for Armenia — a reference to Belarus and its president, Aliaksandr Lukashenka.
Ties between Armenia and Belarus have been in freefall since June, when Pashinyan said that no Armenian officials would visit Belarus while Lukashenka was in power, due to his support for Azerbaijan during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020.
Putin’s participation in Thursday’s has been confirmed, along with the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Uzbekistan and Cuba as observer countries.
