The Armenian parliament voted on Tuesday in favor of ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
"Sixty MPs voted for ratification and twenty others were against. The decision has been adopted," Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan announced.
The session was broadcast in a real-time mode by local portals, TASS reports.
Opposition factions "Armenia" and "I Have The Honor," which had earlier boycotted the debate in the Armenian parliament, returned to the session hall and voted against the ratification. They noted that the adoption of this document has nothing to do with Armenia’s interests and pursues geopolitical goals.
Armenia’s opposition parties earlier condemned the government’s decision to ratify the document, saying that the Armenian leadership was deliberately endangering the country’s allied relationship with Russia, which was fraught with serious consequences for Yerevan.
Armenian Envoy for International Legal Issues Yegishe Kirakosyan reiterated that Yerevan’s move to ratify the Rome Statute, and thus join the ICC and come under its jurisdiction, was aimed against those Azerbaijani troops implicated in committing war crimes on Armenian soil.
A Russian Foreign Ministry official told TASS that Armenia’s move to ratify the Rome Statute would have extremely negative implications for bilateral relations. According to the Foreign Ministry, Moscow deems claims by Armenian officials that joining the ICC would not affect the country’s ties with Russia to be misleading, noting that Yerevan has failed to duly consider Moscow’s counter-proposals.
