“Leaders from the entire continent, with Canada as a guest, will discuss how to work together to strengthen security and collective resilience,” commented António Costa, head of the European Council, at the meeting in Yerevan.
“The Yerevan meeting is the first of its kind in the Caucasus and comes at a time when Armenia is consolidating closer ties with Europe and at the same time trying to carefully free itself from Russian influence,” she pointed out to the France 24 station about the meeting.
French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and a number of other representatives are also in Yerevan. On the other hand, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who apologized due to a collision with another program, is missing.
The EPC Summit, which was held for the first time in 2022 in Prague, is being held without official conclusions, but is intended to provide leaders with a platform for informal negotiations. The community was originally created as a reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The meeting in Yerevan is the first EPC summit in which Canada is participating as a “guest”, which, after several rifts with the American administration of Donald Trump, is starting to orient itself more towards Europe.
Relations between Yerevan and its traditional ally Moscow have soured in recent years, partly because Russia has not intervened in the military clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh with neighboring Azerbaijan.
Last year, Armenia announced its intention to become a prospective member of the EU, having already frozen its membership in the Russian-led security alliance OSKB a year earlier. On the other hand, Armenia still has a base on its territory in the city of Gyumri, where several thousand Russian soldiers are stationed.
Zelenskyj was also in Azerbaijan recently
It is also still part of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) led by Russia, and Moscow supplies the country with gas significantly cheaper than other countries in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently reminded the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of both, who pointed out that Armenia cannot be in the EEU and the EU at the same time.
Deteriorated relations still prevail between Russia and Azerbaijan – they were damaged by the shooting down of an Azerbaijani plane by Russian air defense and the arrests of Azerbaijanis and Russians in both countries.
Zelenskyi visited Baku at the end of April, and signed agreements with the Azerbaijani president on cooperation in the field of security and energy. According to the Ukrainian president, they also talked about the possibility of holding further peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Azerbaijan.
