Russia warns Armenia against siding with ICC after Putin arrest warrant: 'serious consequences'

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Russia is warning Armenia that there would be "serious consequences" if the latter were to follow through on plans to become a member state of the International Criminal Court. 

The state-run RIA news agency cited a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying that Armenia’s ICC plans as "unacceptable." 

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the social and economic development of Crimea and Sevastopol via a videoconference at the Moscow's Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 17, 2023. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

It said Russia had warned Armenia’s government there would be "extremely negative consequences" between their two nations if it were to become a state party to the Rome Statue – a move that would need to be ratified by the Armenian parliament after approval by the constitutional court. 

"Moscow considers official Yerevan’s plans to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to be absolutely unacceptable against the background of the recent illegal null and void warrants of the ICC against the Russian leadership," the Russian Foreign Ministry source reportedly said. 

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Armenia has been a traditional ally of Russia. The two nations have a mutual defense pact and Russia maintains troops and a military base in Armenia. 

FILE: A general view outside of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 29, 2022 in Den Haag, Netherlands.  (Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

But relations have soured in recent months. Yerevan accuses Moscow of failing to uphold a 2020 ceasefire treaty it helped broker between Armenia and Azerbaijan to end a war over Nagorno-Karabakh – an Armenian-populated region of Azerbaijan. 

The ICC said earlier this month it had issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin condemned the move as a meaningless and outrageously partisan decision. 

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It was the first time the global court had issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.