Responding to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s threats to pull Armenia out of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Russian-led military alliance said on Monday that it is committed to defending the country’s borders recognized by its neighbors.
Pashinyan has repeatedly challenged Russia and other CSTO allies to clarify their “zone of responsibility” in Armenia while accusing them of not honoring their security commitments to Yerevan. He most recently did so at a news conference held on March 12.
“If the CSTO answers these questions and its answer corresponds to our expectations, it will mean that the problems between Armenia and the CSTO have been solved,” he said. “If not, Armenia will leave the CSTO. When? I can’t tell.”
“The phrase zone of responsibility is quite complex and it is more intended to draw attention to the situation in the republic than to obtain a substantive answer,” the Russian RBK news agency quoted an unnamed CSTO representative as saying. “Because in accordance with the 2010 agreement on the principles of interaction, which was signed by the CSTO, the zone of responsibility is the sovereign territory of the member states.”
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“The CSTO zone of responsibility ends at the state border which is settled on a bilateral basis between Armenia and its neighbors,” added the official.
Armenia officially asked the other CSTO member states for support after Azerbaijan’s offensive military operations launched along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in September 2022. It has since repeatedly accused them of ignoring the request. It has declined CSTO offers to provide “military-technical assistance” and deploy a monitoring mission to the border.
Last year, Yerevan boycotted high-level meetings, military exercises and other activities of the CSTO in what Pashinyan described in February as an effective suspension of Armenia’s membership in the alliance of six ex-Soviet states. The premier went as far as to say that the alliance is becoming a security threat to his country.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov again insisted last week that the CSTO did not ignore Yerevan’s appeals. Lavrov also waned of the impending “collapse” of Russian-Armenian relations which he said is sought by the West.
