Armenia denied the country's plans to leave the EAEU

Armenia has no plans to leave the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), as its membership in it gives the country economic benefits. Alen Simonyan, speaker of the republic's parliament, told reporters.

"Membership in the EAEU gives Armenia economic benefits. We are not going to withdraw from the EAEU," he said during a broadcast published on YouTube.

Armenia's reluctance to withdraw from the organization was also confirmed by Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan. According to him, Yerevan should strengthen, expand and deepen cooperation with the EAEU, "Gazeta.Ru" added.

In early January, the Armenian government approved a draft law on starting the process of the state's accession to the European Union. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on this, pointed out that it is hypothetically impossible to combine membership in the EU and the EAEU, because the two associations are significantly different. In his turn, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said that if the authors of the draft law on European integration were honest, they would have indicated that Yerevan would leave the Eurasian association as soon as the law on EU membership enters into force.

On January 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, during which they discussed bilateral issues and the EAEU agenda. In the conversation, they also touched upon the topic of deepening integration cooperation, particularly in the field of energy.

Last November, Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin told Izvestia that Russia counts on the long-term involvement of Armenian partners in joint efforts to work out a system of equal and indivisible security on the Eurasian continent.