“There was no such separate issue on the agenda, but Alen Simonyan mentioned it in his speech. It is a fact that there is a problem,” said Gurgen Arsenyan, a member of the National Assembly Civil Contract faction, in a briefing with journalists after the sitting of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly in response to a question about if the issue of Azerbaijani forces invading Armenian territory was discussed or not. The journalists noticed that a year had passed since that invasion, but the public did not know for sure whether Armenia had sent an official letter to the CSTO on that issue. “The question should be addressed to the executive power because I do not know that correspondence. It is a secret correspondence. I was not a member of the faction at that time,” Gurgen Arsenyan answered.
The deputy informed that the security issues were discussed for an hour and the volume of documents is 120 pages. “It is the preparatory work for that sitting. Now I can willingly provide those 120 pages. You can study them- it is not a secret. Fourteen issues were discussed, none of which was dedicated to Armenia or the other country. We have summed up, for example, the effectiveness of the activities of the CSTO military units in Kazakhstan. There was no criticism, complaint or remark that these forces were late, did not serve their purpose. On the contrary, they helped to overcome the problem. It can be said that they did not perform a police function, but protected state objects.”
To the question whether a question was touched that in case of a possible scenario the same will happen in Armenia, Arsenyan answered, “No. At the moment we are not discussing theoretical scenarios, but decisions related to specific problems. The CSTO does not have a mission to discuss any scenario related to any country.”
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To the question whether the fact that the CSTO does not respond to the presence of Azerbaijani troops in Armenia was discussed, Gurgen Arsenyan answered, “I do not want to say that it was discussed, but it was raised. There is no response. Alen Simonyan says his point of view, we move on to the next question. There are mannerisms regarding when you talk about what.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
