By Ani Avetisyan
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan insists his country’s break with the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has passed the “point of no return.” But Russian officials are playing a waiting game, apparently believing Moscow’s gravitational force remains sufficiently strong to prevent Yerevan from escaping its orbit.
Speaking at a parliamentary session in Yerevan on December 4, Pashinyan reiterated that Armenia now considers itself effectively outside the military alliance, having suspended its participation and choosing not to veto documents under discussion at the CSTO’s most recent meeting. He also criticized other CSTO members for failing to fulfill their treaty obligations by not coming to Armenia’s aid during the Second Karabakh War, which resulted in Azerbaijan’s reconquest of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We have fulfilled all our allied obligations accurately, both morally, politically, and legally, but the allied obligations towards us have not been fulfilled,” the Armenpress news agency quoted Pashinyan as saying. “In a difficult moment, they [the CSTO] left us alone, they abandoned us, and yes, there are opinions that we were betrayed.”
The CSTO came into being in 1992 comprising six former Soviet republics — Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Envisioned as a counterbalance to NATO, the alliance was meant to ensure collective security among its members.
But for many Armenians, the CSTO is now a symbol of unfulfilled promises.
