Armenia has taken a new step out of Russia’s orbit and toward the West — a trend that has accelerated in recent years — by closing a strategic cooperation agreement with the United States. This Monday in Washington, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the Armenian Foreign Minister, Ararat Mirzoyán, signed the text that was kept secret until the moment of signing and that includes various economic, energy and political provisions. But, above all, in matters of security and defense, an area in which both countries are committed to establishing “consultation” mechanisms in the military sphere, and in which Washington offers training and a program aimed at “increasing the interoperability” of the Armenian defensive systems with those of the “Euro-Atlantic institutions”.
In this sense, Blinken announced that, in the coming weeks, a team from the US Customs and Border Protection will travel to Armenia for a training program for their counterpart officials. “All of this improves Armenia’s ability to be a strong partner and to be able to take care of its own borders,” said the head of US diplomacy.
Since the signing of an agreement in 1992, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russian guards, dependent on the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), were deployed on Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran and other parts of the country. However, in March of last year, the Armenian Government notified these border guards that they had to leave Yerevan International Airport, where they performed auxiliary functions in passport control, and this December the withdrawal of Russian guards from the border crossing was completed. of Agarak, with Iran. Armenia’s plan is, once the normalization of relations with Türkiye is concluded (still under negotiation), to also order the withdrawal of Russian troops from that border.
“Our relationships, based on common values and mutual interests, have witnessed remarkable growth in recent years. We appreciate the firm support of the United States for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Armenia, as well as support for the strengthening of democratic institutions,” Mirzoyán stated.
The agreement also includes cooperation in cybersecurity, since Armenian government institutions have suffered attacks allegedly coming from Russia, and in the field of nuclear energy (Armenia has an atomic plant that has been in operation for almost 50 years), for which work has begun. to negotiate a separate agreement.
Unlike other steps taken in recent years by Nikol Pashinian’s government to exit Russia’s orbit – for example freezing its membership status in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (the so-called Russian NATO) – this time, The Kremlin’s reaction has been very restrained. “It is a sovereign decision of two States. “We, too, have used the term ‘strategic cooperation’ in several agreements with Western countries and none of these agreements have required any of the participants to oppose a third country,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Armenia remains highly dependent on Russia, especially with respect to its trade and energy supplies, and has a large Russian military base on its territory. For this reason, it tries to maintain a certain balance and shortly before signing the agreement with the United States, Mirzoyan announced that he had accepted an invitation from Lavrov to go to Moscow, while the Minister of Economy, Gevorg Papoyan, declared that his country has no intention to leave the Eurasian Economic Union led by Russia.
Even so, the analysts consulted emphasize the importance of the agreement signed in Washington. “It solidifies US support for Armenia before the Trump Administration gets rolling. It encourages Armenian efforts to resist Russian influence and deters Azerbaijan’s use of force,” says Richard Giragosian, director of the Center for Regional Studies think tank.
The conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan – which has caused several open wars in the last 35 years – has been one of the drivers of this change in Armenia’s alliances. During Azerbaijan’s offensives between 2020 and 2023 to regain control of Nagorno-Karabakh (an enclave of Armenian majority in Azerbaijani territory) and against the territory of the Republic of Armenia itself, Moscow’s lukewarm response and the absence of support from its traditional defender has led the Pashinián Government to look for other allies. For example, the European Union, which intends to formally request membership this year and which has sent a monitoring team to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and the United States. “The symbolism of the American commitment to Armenia is expected to serve to deter Azerbaijani threats. It is not enough, of course, but it is a good start,” adds the expert.
Benjamin Poghosian, an analyst at the Applied Policy Research Institute (APRI) in Yerevan, clarifies that the agreement “does not change the rules of the game” since “it does not include binding security guarantees for Armenia,” although it does “represent another piece in “Deterrence Strategy” of Armenia. And, furthermore, it is “an important pillar in the foreign policy diversification strategy” that Armenia began three years ago.
For the United States, it is a way to maintain its influence in the volatile South Caucasus region, considered by Russia to be its backyard. During the 1990s, Washington’s main ally was Azerbaijan, but it has increasingly shifted toward cooperation with Russia. Georgia, which was also a firm ally of the United States since the early 2000s, has a government that in recent years has distanced itself from the West to strengthen its ties with Moscow.
