Oleg Davigora19:59, 12.06.24

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accuses the Moscow-led CSTO of failing to fulfill its obligations.

Armenia will officially withdraw from the military alliance with Moscow (CSTO), the country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Wednesday, as tensions in relations with Russia grow .

He declared in parliament that “we will withdraw” from the Kremlin’s Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and that “we will determine the terms of our withdrawal,” writes Politico.

“It turned out that the members of the alliance are not fulfilling their contractual obligations, but are planning a war against us and Azerbaijan,” Pashinyan said.

The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Mirzoyan noted that Prime Minister Pashinyan did not announce the beginning of the process of the republic’s withdrawal from the CSTO, but only allowed such a possibility in the future.

The military bloc – Russia’s answer to NATO – consists of six former Soviet states: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Armenia’s membership in the OKDB

Pashinyan accused the CSTO of failing to intervene after his country began a 2022 conflict with Azerbaijan. He also said that Russian peacekeepers had failed in the separatist region of Karabakh last year when Azerbaijan launched an offensive.

As a result, Armenia vowed to “freeze” its membership in the alliance, recall its representatives and not make a financial contribution to its budget . Moscow insists that Yerevan will be “obliged” to pay contributions in any case.

Instead, Pashinyan’s government has held joint exercises with US forces, called on the West for help in strengthening its democracy and even hinted that it might one day try to join the EU. Since then, Russian border guards have been recalled from their positions along Armenia’s borders with its neighbors.

(C)UNIAN 2024