MOSCOW. Sept 4 (Interfax) - Moscow is discontented with some statements made recently by the Armenian leadership, viewing them as unacceptable and as an attempt to shift blame on Russia, a Russian diplomatic source said.
"Moscow is extremely displeased by the Armenian leadership's latest public statements, including the Armenian prime minister's remarks in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the Armenian Foreign Ministry's commentary of August 31 and views them as unacceptable in both their tone and content and as an attempt to shift responsibility for their own miscalculations and mistakes onto Russia," the source told Interfax.
Moscow views relations with Yerevan as equal cooperation rather than one country's "dependence" on the other, the source said.
Moreover, "attempts are being made to oust Russia from the South Caucasus, using Yerevan as a tool to attain this goal," the source said.
"As Armenia's closest neighbor and friend, Russia is not going to leave the region. However, this should be a two-way street," he said.
Yerevan's premise that the conflict over Karabakh has never been a territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan is false, the source said.
"The armed standoff in the fall of 2020 was in many respects a result of the Armenian leadership's ill-advised and provocative steps," he said.
"The claims alleging that Russia is totally indifferent to 'Azerbaijan's aggression' against the Republic of Armenia's sovereign territory are untenable," he said.
"The principal way for settling Armenian-Azerbaijani differences is through implementing the trilateral agreements at the top level, which has been unacceptably dragged out not through Russia's fault," he said.
Yerevan is also not fully taking advantage of the Collective Security Treaty Organization's (CSTO) capability, particularly by refusing to consent to a CSTO mission's stationing and making a choice in favor of an inefficient European Union mission, the source said.
Armenia earlier "did an about-face from statements that Karabakh was Armenia to recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan," the source said.
"This fundamentally changed the terms and conditions of the November 9, 2020 agreements and utterly complicated the Russian peacekeeping contingent's work in Nagorno-Karabakh," he said.