MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) - Russia has not received notification from Armenia of its decision to remove Russian border officials from Yerevan's Zvartnots International Airport via diplomatic channels, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
"We've seen the Armenian leadership's comments, and the relevant notification was forwarded at the interagency level. We haven't received anything via diplomatic channels," Zakharova said at a press briefing on Wednesday.
She said she expected all decisions on the matter would be made at the interagency level.
"The Armenian side made the above-mentioned announcements against the backdrop of a string of Yerevan's unfriendly steps and statements," Zakharova said.
"Such initiatives are unlikely to meet the security interests of Armenia and its citizens, especially considering the functions that Russian and Armenian border guards have performed efficiently shoulder-to-shoulder for years," she said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Tuesday that officials from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Border Service would have to leave Zvartnots Airport by August 1, 2024.
The Kremlin confirmed that Russia received Armenia's official notification on replacing Russian border officials at the airport with Armenian ones.
Speaking of Yerevan's stance on its Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) membership, Zakharova said that Russia "has never questioned, is not questioning, and will not question any country's sovereign right to determine its foreign policy, including the degree of its involvement in various international or regional organizations based on their national interests and obligations they have undertaken."
"At the same time, we cannot fail to be alarmed by the counterproductive, categorical, and sometimes insulting rhetoric that is predominant these days in the Armenian leadership's remarks concerning the organization's affairs and which is forced upon the Armenian public," she said.
Moscow is "perplexed by the persistence with which some of the Armenian elites are discussing the CSTO's efficiency outside of this organization, while all the necessary mechanisms, formats, and ways are in place for that," she said.
"We perfectly understand the level of pressure being put on our Armenian partners by Western countries seeking to unsettle the situation in the region and use it as a springboard against our country. However, the continuation of Yerevan's current course might ultimately cause irreparable damage to our allied relations, create serious risks for the country's sovereignty, completely ruin the existing working mechanisms for ensuring its security, and affect prospects for its consistent socioeconomic development," Zakharova said.