Armenia asks Russia to sign agreement allowing to bypass demands of Rome Statute
"Essentially, we are yet to receive an answer but there is still a lot of time before the Rome Statute takes effect," Deputy Speaker of Armenia’s parliament Hakob Arshakyan noted
YEREVAN, November 2. /TASS/. Armenia has asked Russia to sign a transnational agreement helping bypass the demands of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Deputy Speaker of Armenia’s parliament Hakob Arshakyan said at a briefing.
"Several months before ratifying the Rome Statute, we asked Russia to sign a bilateral agreement so that our transnational legal relations wouldn't be scrutinized by international structures, so that the ratification wouldn't impact our relations. Essentially, we are yet to receive an answer but there is still a lot of time before the Rome Statute takes effect. Legally, we may have an agreement, excluding the decisions of the international court on the issues concerning the two countries," he said.
Armenia’s proposal to sign such an agreement looks like "salvaging a bad hand," Leonid Slutsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and chair of the International Affairs Committee told TASS.
He noted that by ratifying the Rome Statute, Armenia had made a patently unfriendly step with regard to Russia. The legislator thinks that Armenia’s arguments that it will use it as an instrument to investigate possible war crimes in the zone of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict were clearly contrived.
On October 3, the Armenian Parliament voted to ratify the ICC Rome Statute. Some 60 legislators supported the decision while 20 voted against it. The two opposition factions, Armenia and I Have Honor, that boycotted discussing the issue returned to vote against it. They noted that ratifying this document has nothing to do with Armenia’s interests and is a purely geopolitical move.
The Russian Foreign Ministry previously told TASS that Armenia’s ratification of the Rome Statute would take a heavy toll on bilateral relations. The diplomatic agency stressed that the premise promoted by Armenian authorities that joining the ICC will not affect Russian-Armenian ties in any way is out of touch with reality and Yerevan had not taken into account Moscow’s response proposals on the statute.