De jure CSTO refuses to register its area of responsibility in Armenia. Prime Minister

The CSTO has not given a proper response to the security challenges of Armenia in its de jure mandatory obligations, and this has been repeated several times. As "Armenpress" informs, RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashayan said this during a question-and-answer session with government members in the National Assembly, answering the question of Agnesa Khamoyan, MP of the Armenia faction, why Armenia refuses to participate in CSTO and CIS in different formats of meetings and what does all this mean? Is the ground being prepared for leaving the CSTO?

In response to these questions, the Prime Minister said that Armenia does not refuse the meetings, but a decision was made not to attend those events for various reasons.

"As for the question of whether I am preparing the ground for anything, I am not preparing the ground for anything, because that ground is either there or it is not, regardless of our preparation.

You also asked what kind of security system did we work with or ensure the security of the country?

The most important record related to the processes taking place in the CSTO and our positions is that, unfortunately, the CSTO did not give a proper response to its de jure mandatory obligations to Armenia's security challenges, and this has been repeated several times. Treating all our colleagues with all respect, we simply record that it is not understandable for our public either, why we repeat the same things every time we go, say the same things without getting any response, leave and go back. Then the next time he goes and returns in the same way without receiving any response," said Pashinyan.

The prime minister considers the biggest fundamental problem to be that the de jure CSTO refuses to register its area of responsibility in the Republic of Armenia.

"This may mean that we, in those conditions, simply silently participating, can join the logic that will question Armenia's territorial integrity and sovereignty. We cannot afford such a thing in the sense that we also make such decisions in order to give ourselves and CSTO time to think about what to do next," Pashinyan said.

According to him, Armenia did not refuse the CSTO to send a mission but wanted the CSTO to clearly record Armenia's territorial integrity before sending the mission.

"We were not shown the Republic of Armenia, we showed the Republic of Armenia and said that this protocol should be made, which the CSTO did not do. We cannot accept such a mission, because it will turn out that we are legitimizing the blurred image of the Republic of Armenia and under these conditions we are also legitimizing the invasions of Azerbaijan," Pashinyan emphasized.

According to him, Armenia is diversifying its security relations because its partners in the security sector, including for objective reasons, do not sell weapons and ammunition.

"We are looking for other security partners. And we are looking for and finding other security partners, we are trying to sign contracts, get some weapons, military equipment. That is our policy. And strategically, we are not going to announce a change in our policy until we decide to leave the CSTO," Pashinyan concluded.