Armenia Freezes Participation in CSTO

YEREVAN — Armenia has suspended its participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this his interview with France 24 TV channel.

“In our view, the CSTO has not fulfilled — in 2021 and 2022 in particular — its security obligations to Armenia, and we could not have let that go without consequences,” Pashinyan said. “As a consequence, we have, in effect, frozen our participation in the CSTO. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

The CSTO includes six states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

As for the Russian military base located in Armenia’s Gyumri, the prime minister said its deployment is not part of the CSTO. “In fact, it is the subject of another (Russian-Armenian) treaty. We are not talking about it at the moment,” Pashinyan said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not go to Minsk for the CSTO summit in November 22, 2023. Earlier in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Pashinyan said that Azerbaijan’s aggressive actions and the CSTO’s inaction force Armenia to seek diversification of security relations.

Pashinyan also claimed that in the wake of Azerbaijan’s capture of Nagorno-Karabakh last September “Russia’s most high-ranking representatives” encouraged Armenians to take to the streets and topple him.

Moscow reacted cautiously to Pashinyan’s latest remarks, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that it expects Yerevan to clarify them. Peskov also noted that the Armenian side has not notified the CSTO about the suspensions of its membership in the organization.