Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetian has said that his government remains “very determined” to sign an agreement on deepening Armenia’s links with the European Union.

“We are going to sign," Karapetian told journalists on August 21 when visiting a pro-government youth camp in the central spa town of Tsaghkadzor.

The Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) was finalized by Armenian and EU officials in Yerevan in March. It is due to be signed during an EU summit in Brussels in November.

The CEPA is a less ambitious alternative to an Association Agreement negotiated by Armenian and EU officials in 2013. President Serzh Sarkisian unexpectedly scuttled that deal in September 2013 after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Yerevan.

In January 2015, Armenia joined the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

Asked whether Yerevan might abandon the CEPA as well at the last minute, Karapetian said: “Can there be developments that will prevent the signing? I don’t see them at the moment.”

In June, the chairwoman of an Armenian parliament committee on European integration, Naira Zohrabian, said that the key CEPA provisions have been discussed by Yerevan and Moscow and Russia did not object to them.