Alen Simonyan on Military-Technical Cooperation with Russia

Alen Simonyan, the Vice Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, does not rule out that a new agreement will be signed in the field of military-technical cooperation between Armenia and Russia. He made this statement today during a press briefing with journalists in the National Assembly, commenting on the statement made by the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kopirkin.

In an interview with TASS, the Russian Ambassador to Armenia, Sergey Kopirkin, announced that Russia and Armenia are discussing new agreements in the military-technical cooperation field.

“This is a general discussion where all the supposedly contentious issues might be considered,” said Simonyan.

Journalists asked how to understand the discussions regarding arms trade against the backdrop of the recent anti-Russian sentiments. Simonyan disagreed with the formulation of “anti-Russian” sentiment, emphasizing that friendly ties unite the two nations.

“First, the term ‘anti-Russianism’ is incorrectly used because the Armenian and Russian peoples are friendly nations, and one cannot say such things about the peoples. There is no anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia; there is a dislike for the policies and steps that have been carried out in recent years,” said Simonyan.

He requested that this not be transformed into an anti-Russian context.