“Today we are talking about military systems, the CSTO, why they don’t come to support us, but we ourselves did not dig a trench on our borders. No one from Central Asia will come to dig a ditch for us,” said former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan in a conversation with journalists at the Yerablur pantheon.
In response to the journalist’s question about whether it is appropriate for Armenia to remain a member of CSTO, the former minister answered, “I think it is appropriate because the CSTO is a geographical, regional, and military-political structure that was formed for collective security, and we are located in that collective security region. For many years, at least until 2018, the Armenian authorities have done serious work on the development of the military component of that military-political structure.
For example, we have been exemplary in the formation of collective forces for operational response. We have been exemplary in the formation of CSTO peacekeeping forces, because none of the CSTO countries had peacekeeping forces, but we did, and our educational base was exemplary. And what have today’s authorities done to develop CSTO? On the contrary, the CSTO was attacked, and our general secretary of the CSTO was tried to be arrested and a criminal case initiated. We are not happy with those gaps, but we must be exemplary in the CSTO, we must push forward and negotiate, and we must be smart so that the CSTO fulfills its tasks.”
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Nelly BABAYAN
