Yerevan's Engagement with the West in the South Caucasus Could Lead to State Collapse, Says Russian Deputy Foreign Minister

We believe that the future of the South Caucasus should be determined by the countries for which this region is a common home, while neither the USA, nor France, nor EU countries fall into that category. This was stated by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin in an interview with Izvestia.

“Accordingly, we consider the involvement of non-regional forces, the 'Westerners', in the region to be counterproductive, which, unfortunately, official Yerevan has been inclined to in recent times. We see that in no country or region where the United States and its satellites from the EU and NATO have intervened, has there been stability and durable peace. There has only been state collapse, chaos, and destabilization. The examples are numerous: the Balkans, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel,” Galuzin said.

According to him, Western interests in Transcaucasia are not about helping Armenia to regulate relations with Azerbaijan and achieve stable peace, but rather about pushing Russia out of this process and creating another hotspot of tension in the immediate vicinity of its borders.