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Armenian PM insists country has irrevocably broken with the Russia-led CSTO.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan insists his country’s break with the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has passed the “point of no return.” But Russian officials are playing a waiting game, apparently believing Moscow’s gravitational force remains sufficiently strong to prevent Yerevan from escaping its orbit.
Speaking at a parliamentary session in Yerevan on December 4, Pashinyan reiterated that Armenia now considers itself effectively outside the military alliance, having suspended its participation and choosing not to veto documents under discussion at the CSTO’s most recent meeting. He also criticized other CSTO members for failing to fulfill their treaty obligations by not coming to Armenia’s aid during the Second Karabakh War, which resulted in Azerbaijan’s reconquest of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We have fulfilled all our allied obligations accurately, both morally, politically, and legally, but the allied obligations towards us have not been fulfilled,” the Armenpress news agency quoted Pashinyan as saying. “In a difficult moment, they [the CSTO] left us alone, they abandoned us, and yes, there are opinions that we were betrayed.”
The CSTO came into being in 1992 comprising six former Soviet republics — Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Envisioned as a counterbalance to NATO, the alliance was meant to ensure collective security among its members.
But for many Armenians, the CSTO is now a symbol of unfulfilled promises.
Pashinyan’s efforts to sever ties with the CSTO are part of a broader effort to move Armenia toward integration with Western political, economic and security institutions, and out from under Russia’s security and economic umbrella.
Russia’s response to Pashinyan’s latest verbal salvo was relatively muted. On December 5, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the CSTO had not received any official communication from Armenian leader concerning the country’s organizational status, adding that Armenia remains a welcome member of the group.
“We hear these rumors that the prime minister of Armenia spoke and discussed many things on this topic in the parliament,” Lavrov told journalists. “We are convinced that making the most of [CSTO] membership is in the interests of Armenia’s security. Russia and other CSTO members have not taken and are not going to take any action that will be perceived as closing the doors to Yerevan.”
Earlier, at a CSTO summit in Kazakhstan on November 28, Russian leader Vladimir Putin expressed a belief that Armenia ultimately would not quit the CSTO, suggesting that Pashinyan’s statements were aimed at a domestic audience, motivated by internal factors relating to Armenia’s crushing defeat in the Karabakh conflict. He added that it would have been improper for the CSTO to intervene in the Karabakh conflict.
(eurasianet)