YEREVAN. Sept 11 (Interfax) - Yerevan's ratification of the Rome Statute has nothing to do with its relations with Russia, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.
"We began the ratification the Rome Statute in December 2022. Unfortunately, this process coincided with the context of relations with Russia and the ICC [International Criminal Court]. But I have to say that this process is not related to Armenia's relationship with Russia," Pashinyan said in an interview with the national Public Television.
The document's ratification is related to "the situation, tension on our border with Azerbaijan," he said.
"We understand that this forms a bad context and causes concern, but on the other hand, we cannot terminate our relations and obligations to our partners and we are trying to develop these relations in a natural way," Pashinyan said.
On September 1, the Armenian government told Interfax it had sent the parliament a legislative initiative to ratify the statute.
Armenia signed the Rome Statute in 1998.
In late 2022, the Armenian government asked the Constitutional Court to verify whether the statute was constitutional. On March 24, 2023, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the obligations stipulated in the ICC Rome Statute.
In March 2023, an ICC pre-trial chamber issued arrest warrants for Russia's President Vladimir Putin and children's ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. The decision was made as part of case into "unlawful deportation" of children from parts of Ukraine under Russia's control to Russia, the ICC said. Moscow dismissed the court's decision as void and unlawful, and placed the judge and the prosecutor who were involved in the decision-making process on Russia's wanted list.