Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today accused the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) of creating threats to Armenia's security.
Addressing lawmakers, Pashinyan said that instead of fulfilling its security commitments to Armenia, the military pact is creating problems for it.
‘The CSTO's position towards Armenia, I say it openly, is a threat to Armenia's national security," he reiterated.
The Prime Minister noted that Armenia asked the CSTO (after Azerbaijan’s invasion of Armenian sovereign territory in 2021 and 2022) to specify its zone of responsibility in Armenia, but the latter refused.
"As for my statement that we have practically frozen our membership in the CSTO, it means the following: we haven't had a permanent representative in the CSTO for a year, we haven't participated in summits and meetings for a long time. Of course, the CSTO has the principle of consensus in decision-making, so we are not blocking anything, but we do not participate for a simple reason: we have not received an answer to the question why we should," the Prime Minister said.
Pashinyan said that if the situation does not change, "we will talk about de jure freezing of participation in the CSTO."
