Citizens of Armenia should have the opportunity to choose whether thecountry remains part of the Eurasian Economic Union or joins theEuropean Union, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Chairman ofthe Board of the Civil Contract Party, currently on leave, said duringan election campaign event in the Kotayk province.

Pashinyan stressed that the decision should be made by the people.

“The people of Armenia must have an alternative – whether to remain inthe EAEU or to be part of the European Union. I will not decide that,people. The one who will decide is the sovereign – the citizen ofArmenia,” the prime minister said.

According to him, the government’s task is to ensure that citizenshave alternatives, and citizens do have alternatives.

“I want to say that our partners who respond to these processes evenwith hidden threats are, in fact, acting against themselves. On thecontrary, they should present proposals to the Armenian people andsay: we will do this good thing, we will do that good thing. Butinstead they say: we will do this bad thing, we will do that badthing. That is illogical.

It is also illogical to threaten Armenia, for example, with higherprices, because there is an answer to that threat: we will have muchgreater economic opportunities so that this will not become a problemfor us.

Today Armenia is becoming the ‘Crossroads of Peace’. And this meansthat Armenia will no longer be a country of thousands or millions, buta country of billions and trillions,” Pashinyan stressed.

Earlier, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Russia hadallegedly threatened Armenia with the unilateral suspension orcancellation of agreements on supplies of gas, petroleum products anduncut diamonds if the country continued the process of seekingmembership in the European Union.

The newspaper wrote that Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev hadsent a letter with such content to Armenia’s Ministry of TerritorialAdministration and Infrastructure on May 25.

Under an agreement signed between Armenia and Russia in 2013, Russiasupplies Armenia with gas, petroleum products and uncut diamondswithout export duties and under preferential terms related to domesticconsumption.

According to the Kommersant report, if the agreement is terminated,Armenia would be obliged to pay compensation to Russia, or the unpaidamounts would be recognised as Armenia’s state debt to the RussianFederation.