Armenia says it invited Russia to sign agreement on circumventing requirements of Rome Statute

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Armenia asked Russia to sign a bilateral agreement that would allow Yerevan to ignore rules regarding an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a senior Armenian official said Thursday.

The proposal was made to Russia several months before Armenia ratified the ICC's Rome Statute, Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Hakob Arshakyan told a news conference in the capital.

The ratification makes it one of 124 countries obliged to arrest Putin if he enters the country.

"We invited Russia to sign a bilateral agreement so that our interstate legal relations would not be subject to verification by international structures, so that ratification would not affect our relations," he said.

Arshakyan said Moscow has not given an answer yet, but "there is still a lot of time before the Rome Statute comes into force."

"Legally, we can have an agreement that excludes the application of the decisions of the International Criminal Court on issues concerning the two countries," he said.

On Oct. 3, the Armenian parliament voted to ratify the Rome Statute, placing it under the jurisdiction of the ICC.

The ruling enters into force 60 days after the signing.

The move drew criticism from Russia due to the court’s arrest warrants for President Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of Russia, accusing them of the “war crime of unlawful deportation of children” from Ukraine to Russia, which Moscow denies.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted in 1998 in the Italian capital, is the treaty that established the ICC.