Armenia to make ‘final decisions’ on CSTO if Russia will not criticise Azerbaijani occupation
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan has said that Yerevan will make ‘final decisions’ on the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Russia-led defence alliance, if Moscow and other treaty allies do not ‘make political statements’ about Azerbaijani incursions and occupation of Armenian territory.
‘Regarding the CSTO, we don’t simply hint, we say directly that this can’t go on forever. After all, if the CSTO colleagues, including Russia, don’t make political statements — which was raised after the attack against Armenia’s sovereign territory years earlier, then Armenia will make final decisions’, Kostanyan said.
He was likely referring to Azerbaijani attacks on territory internationally recognised as being Armenian in 2021 and 2022. Azerbaijani forces continue to hold some of this territory.
It was not immediately clear what Kostanyan meant by ‘political statements’.
After being asked when Armenia would leave the CSTO, Kostanyan said ‘as a sovereign state, Armenia decides on its own when it is the right time to [take] any given step’.
Armenia’s relations started to severely deteriorate with Russia and the CSTO after the two failed to send assistance during Azerbaijani incursions into Armenia in 2021 and 2022.
After sitting out CSTO events for months and pulling out from hosting a CSTO drill, in February 2024, Armenia announced that its participation in the CSTO was ‘basically frozen’.
Moreover, at the end of 2024, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that ‘we have crossed the point of no return’ in regards to the country’s possible return to the bloc.
‘The discrepancy between these events and their now public mutual expression makes the return of the Republic of Armenia to the CSTO increasingly difficult, if not impossible’, Pashinyan said at the time.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
