Armenia‘s parliament today voted in favor of opening accession negotiations with the European Union, with the Caucasus country, a former ally of Russia, seeking rapprochement with the West.

The text, adopted in a final reading with 64 votes in favour, those of ruling party MPs, and 7 against, calls on the Armenian government to start the EU accession process.

For nearly a year and a half, this former Soviet republic has been multiplying its moves of contempt for Russia, a long-time historical ally that has long sold arms and still has a military base on Armenian soil.

Armenia accuses Moscow of not supporting it against Azerbaijan, which fully recaptured by force in the autumn of 2023 Karabakh, a region belonging to Azerbaijan but with a majority Armenian population and for three decades under the control of Armenian separatists.

Russian peacekeeping troops deployed in Karabakh did not intervene during this Azerbaijani offensive in order to maintain the ceasefire reached in late 2020 between Baku and Yerevan after a six-week war.

Azerbaijan’s recapture of the entire Karabakh region led more than 100,000 Armenians to flee the area for fear of acts of violence.

Since then, Yerevan has distanced itself from Moscow.

In late January 2024, Armenia formally joined the ICC, despite Moscow’s warnings, and is now obliged to arrest Vladimir Putin if the latter sets foot in Armenia under an ICC arrest warrant issued against the Russian president in March 2023.

A permanent Russian military base remains on Armenian territory in the town of Gyurmi, and Yerevan remains a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a Moscow-led military alliance.

In February 2024, however, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pasinyan had said that Armenia had “practically frozen” its membership in that alliance.

Subsequently, in July of that year, Armenia had hosted joint military exercises with the United States.

In March, Armenia and Azerbaijan announced that they had reached a “peace agreement” to settle the long-running conflict.

The document, the result of long and complex negotiations, mainly over border demarcation, has not yet been signed, however.