Hakob Arshakyan, Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, has stressed that the national authorities will not detain Russian President Vladimir Putin in compliance with the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant in case Putin sets foot in the country, he told Armenpress.
“Naturally, the ruling party and team have no desire or intention to do that,” he said.
When told that this outcome will be inevitable in case Armenia ratifies the Rome Statute, Arshakyan said that Yerevan recently signed an agreement with another country “which says that the Rome Statute won’t affect the bilateral relations”.
“This agreement can be reached with Russia as well. But that’s just one option. There are still other options. One thing is clear: we have heard concerns voiced by Russia,” he noted. According to the official, Moscow and Yerevan will successfully negotiate a way to prevent the Rome Statute from damaging the relations between the countries.
Arshakyan also reminded the news agency that the Armenian government appealed to the Constitutional Court on the issue of the Rome Statute ratification in order to hold Azerbaijan accountable for the crimes committed in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Armenian Constitutional Court ruled that the ICC obligations enshrined in the Rome Statute fall in line with the national constitution on 24 March.
The countries that ratify the Rome Statute are obliged to comply with the ICC rulings and decisions. In this case, Russian President Vladimir Putin and commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova will not officially be able to enter Armenia because the national authorities would be then required to detain them.
The International Criminal Court headquartered in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against Putin and Lvova-Belova on 17 March. Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”, the ICC press release reads. Lvova-Belova is suspected of the same crimes.
Hungarian authorities noted that they would not arrest Putin under the ICC order if he sets foot in the country. Hungary signed and ratified the Rome Statute that lays foundations for the ICC but the document “was not built into Hungary’s legal system”, the Hungarian prime minister’s office stressed.
Armenia signed the Rome Statute back in 1998 but failed to ratify the document after the Constitutional Court ruled in 2004 that several provisions were not in line with the national constitution that was active at the time.
