Kremlin hopes Armenia joining ICC will not affect ties

The Kremlin said Thursday it hoped Armenia joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) would not affect relations after warning the Caucasus country for months against the move.

Armenia -- which has distanced itself from its historic ally Russia in recent months -- formally joined The Hague-based court Thursday.

It is now obliged to arrest President Vladimir Putin if he sets foot on Armenian territory after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader in March 2023.

"It is important for us for such decisions not to negatively affect -- de jure and de facto -- our bilateral relations, which we value and which we want to develop further," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

He said Armenia's decision to join the ICC was its "sovereign right".

The Kremlin had earlier warned Armenia that joining the court would be the "wrong decision".

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sought to portray joining the court as a move against Yerevan's foe Azerbaijan, not Russia.

But he has, in recent months, made critical comments about Russia's role in the Caucasus.

Yerevan has grown angry with Moscow over its role in mediating the Karabakh conflict, believing that Russia's peacekeeping mission did not act to stop Azerbaijan's offensive in September last year.

Azerbaijan retook control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in a lightning military operation after three decades of Armenian separatist control.

But Moscow insisted Thursday that Yerevan's security still depends on a Russian-led security bloc.

Armenia hosts a permanent Russian military base and is part of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a military alliance that consists of several ex-Soviet states.

The Russian foreign ministry's CSTO representative, Viktor Vasilyev, told news agencies that "the security of Armenia, including in the military-technical sphere, is not possible without cooperation within the CSTO."