Armenia submitted a proposal to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to give up the quota of the CSTO Deputy Secretary. There are comments that this step is part of the process of Armenia’s separation from the CSTO, the links of which were the refusal of CSTO military exercises, not accepting CSTO observers, and refusing to participate in military activities that were not on the territory of Armenia. The guest of the “Aravot” “Areresum” (“Confrontation”) program, Expert of the NA Standing Committee on Defense and Security, and Colonel of the reserve army Artsrun Hovhannisyan, answered the question: “What problem is Armenia solving?” “When your territory was attacked in 2022, and you don’t get at least the necessary assessment from the CSTO, when the CSTO generals come and go around, see everything with their own eyes, but you don’t have a final assessment, when you are the chairman of the CSTO, and it becomes a hyperactive body and reacts to any risk in seconds during our presidency, maybe after that we should think about all this again. But I don’t think it is a clear process of leaving the CSTO. It’s a bit over the top.”
The other program guest, an expert of the Research Center of Security Policy and Candidate of Political Sciences Robert Ghevondyan, commented. “This is a process of weakening our positions in the CSTO, which is one step. Unfortunately, the Armenian authorities are not taking clear steps, but such half-steps. Just as it was half a step to refuse to participate in military exercises, it was half a step to express displeasure. Those of us analysts who see the problems of Armenia’s presence in the CSTO see that in case of withdrawal, there are other opportunities (of course, we are not talking about NATO in any case) to equip better and reform the Armenian army. It’s not about any system. I am speaking about introducing various elements of other systems and rearming the Armenian army through them.” He added: “Let’s hope that these half-steps will eventually lead to the fact that Armenia will leave that group and be able to use the systemic opportunities I mentioned, and in the end, we will be able to increase our military potential to some extent to talk to Azerbaijan from a tougher position.”
Anna ISRAYELYAN
