ANTALYA, March 2. /TASS/. The Armenian authorities for some reason now want to build relations not with their neighbors and friends, but with their enemies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"For some reason Armenia believes that it is necessary to build its life not in cooperation with its closest neighbors and peoples who have historically been in solidarity with them, but with those who oppose their friends," he said at a press conference following the Antalya Diplomacy Forum.
Lavrov pointed out that Russia has its own idea about the "usefulness" of the presence of Americans, British and Europeans in the South Caucasus, which is based on facts and previous experience. The top diplomat recalled that Western interference in other people's affairs has not brought anything good to any region of the world.
"Other countries of the South Caucasus region and neighbors understand this," he added.
The Russian side regrets that Yerevan has made a "conscious decision" to pursue a policy towards worsening relations with Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"We regret that the Armenian leadership has, apparently, made a conscious decision to consistently pursue a policy of deteriorating relations with the Russian Federation, of blaming Russia for everything that happened with Nagorno-Karabakh. This is not an allied policy, of course," the minister said.
Lavrov also stressed that the statement that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) left Yerevan in trouble in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was untrue.
"One of the main accusations - in addition to make-believe stories that I quoted, when it was stated by Armenian officials that it was Russia that pushed Azerbaijan to start the war in September 2020, which is ungrateful assessments, because it was the Russian Federation that stopped this war - is the statement that the CSTO left Armenia in the lurch, which does not correspond to reality. When the CSTO, in response to a request from Yerevan, sent its mission of experts to study on the spot, it returned and proposed deploying a peacekeeping mission of observers on Armenian territory on the border with Azerbaijan," Lavrov said.