Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev missed the informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg due to a busy work schedule. Aliyev's administration also noted that his absence from the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on December 21 was due to Azerbaijan not being a member of the organization.
Armenia will move in the direction that will provide it with maximum security. The country is ready to deepen relations with the European Union and become a candidate for membership in it. This was announced by the speaker of the parliament of the republic Alen Simonyan.
Simonyan also said that being a democratic country is Armenia's greatest security system. Recently, the speaker of the Armenian parliament said that Russian border guards should leave Zvartnoy airport in Yerevan.
The day before, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted that his country has no choice but to move towards Europe. He also repeatedly criticized the military-political bloc CSTO, which is under Russian influence, and announced the freezing of Armenia’s participation in it.