President Vladimir Putin has consented to withdraw Russian troops and border guards from specific areas of Armenia, according to a request made by Yerevan. This development was reported by Russia’s Interfax news agency, quoting Putin’s spokesperson on Thursday. The decision comes after the recent exit of nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan forcibly regained control of last September. This withdrawal ended Moscow’s long standing military presence in the strategic South Caucasus.
Armenia has asked Russian border guards to also leave their posts at the country’s main airport in Yerevan from Aug. 1.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited on Thursday as saying that Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had reached an agreement on a wave of new Russian departures at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday.
“In autumn 2020, at the request of the Armenian side, our military and border guards were deployed to a number of Armenian regions. Pashinyan said that today, due to changed conditions, there is no longer such a need so President Putin agreed and the withdrawal of our military and border guards was agreed,” Peskov told Interfax.
The Sputnik Armenia news service cited a senior Armenian politician from the ruling party as saying that Putin and Pashinyan had agreed that Russian forces and border guards would withdraw from five Armenian regions.
Russian border guards will however remain on Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran – at Yerevan’s request – Peskov was quoted as sayingby Interfax.
Pashinyan criticised Russia for not intervening to stop Azerbaijani forces in Karabakh and has since publicly questioned his country’s traditional alliance with Russia – which has a string of military facilities inside Armenia – and has started to forge closer ties with the West.
With Inputs from Reuters
