AKIPRESS.COM - Armenia is “not preparing the ground” for withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), but is giving itself and the bloc time to think about further steps, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in Parliament. This is how he commented on the decision to skip the CSTO meeting, which is scheduled for November 23 in Minsk, News.am reports.

According to Pashinyan, Armenia is looking for other partners in the security field, but "it is not going to announce changes in strategic policy until it has declared or decided to leave the CSTO."

The Prime Minister said that the CSTO "has not responded properly to security challenges of Armenia": "De jure, the CSTO refuses to fix its area of responsibility in Armenia. This may mean that in these conditions, by remaining silent, we can share a worldview that could threaten the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Armenia," explained the Armenian prime minister.

Pashinyan said Yerevan did not refuse the CSTO mission, but demanded to clarify "what Armenia is in their minds." "The CSTO did not do this. We cannot accept such a mission, because it turns out that we legitimize the blurred idea of Armenia and thus legitimize Azerbaijan’s invasions," he added.

Pashinyan did not sign the joint declaration of the CSTO Collective Security Council in November 2022 due to the lack of a political assessment of "Azerbaijan’s aggression" against the sovereignty of Armenia. It was about clashes on the border of the two countries in 2021 and 2022, as a result of which Baku occupied about 140 square meters. km of Armenian territory, he said.

In May, Pashinyan admitted that Armenia could suspend its membership in the CSTO. He stated that, in Yerevan's opinion, the CSTO does not respond to requests to send a monitoring mission; thus, one gets the impression that the organization is “leaving Armenia.”