The Armenian government will not object if Russia wants to withdraw its 102nd Military Base from Gyumri, PM Nikol Pashinyan said, reiterating at the same time that Yerevan has never started such discussions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have never put the issue of the Russian military base operating in Armenia on the agenda. Now Russia has put it on the agenda, and we are taking a position regarding this discussion,\u201d he said at a press briefing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what should we do, say, like the leader of \u2018Strong Armenia,\u2019 \u2018we have been abandoned?\u2019\u201d he said, referring to opposition leader Samvel Karapetyan\u2019s controversial remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they want to withdraw it, let them withdraw it,\u201d Pashinyan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am saying that the events of September 2022 showed that the 102nd Military Base has no vital significance for Armenia\u2019s security. There has not been a single case when any of our officials raised such an issue or raised such a question with any Russian official. If they decide to withdraw it, we will not object.\u00a0The 102nd Military Base adds nothing to Armenia\u2019s security. If they do not want to withdraw it, we are also ready to discuss that issue,\u201d Pashinyan said.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister reiterated that Armenia is pursuing a balanced foreign policy and a policy of maintaining balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not need to be threatened with withdrawal from the CSTO. If they want to withdraw [us], let them withdraw [us]. If they do not want to withdraw [us], let them not withdraw [us],\u201d Pashinyan said.<\/p>\n
On September 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a press briefing at the SCO summit that if Armenia believes it does not need a Russian military base, Russia is ready to withdraw it \u201ceven tomorrow.\u201d At the same time, he said that if the Armenian side wants to maintain the Russian military presence, Moscow is ready to continue cooperation.<\/em><\/p>\n On September 3, Nikol Pashinyan responded to the statement, emphasizing that Yerevan had not raised the issue of withdrawing the 102nd Military Base.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Armenian government will not object if Russia wants to withdraw its 102nd Military Base from Gyumri, PM Nikol Pashinyan said, reiterating at the same time that Yerevan has never started such discussions. \u201cWe have never put the issue of the Russian military base operating in Armenia on the agenda. Now Russia has put it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6944,"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions\/6944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpc.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}