Armenian lawmakers voted on Tuesday, October 3, to ratify the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC). A broadcast of the Caucasus country's parliament session showed 60 deputies voting in favor of the proposal with 22 mainly opposition lawmakers voting against joining the ICC.
The Kremlin has said that a decision in Armenia to join The Hague-based court, which has issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children, would be "extremely hostile." ICC members are expected to move on Putin's arrest if the Russian leader steps foot in their territory.
Armenian's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan last week sought to assuage Kremlin fears. "The decision is not directed against... the Russian Federation. It comes from the interests of the country's external security, and taking such a decision is our sovereign right," he said.
Tensions have been rising between Yerevan and Moscow over the role of Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, which announced its dissolution last week following a lightning military operation by Baku.