The CSTO must show resolve in addressing the challenges arising in its area of responsibility, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on 10 August, receiving the alliance’s Secretary General Stanislav Zas, stressing that Armenia is preparing very seriously for its upcoming presidency of the organisation.
“The CSTO is one of the key elements of Armenia’s security system, which has a wide area of responsibility. Unfortunately, in quite a number of places tension is rising. And it is also for that reason that we are preparing very seriously for our presidency of the organisation, connected not only with the challenges that have emerged for us recently in terms of the security of the Republic of Armenia, but also in a broader sense,” the Prime Minister said.
Noting that the CSTO is first and foremost an organisation that resolves problems through political methods, Pashinyan continued: “Of course, it is a military-political organisation, first and foremost, that is also stipulated by its charter; it is necessary to invest maximum efforts so that the situations, disagreements and challenges that arise in the CSTO’s area of responsibility are resolved through political methods. And I believe that the organisation has very great opportunities to resolve the problems that have emerged through political methods. It is necessary that the organisation and we show a certain resolve with regard to these issues.”
The Prime Minister recalled that Azerbaijan’s armed forces have been illegally present on Armenian territory for several months now. “Of course, there is much discussion regarding the CSTO’s response to that situation. I must say that in fact for the first time in the CSTO we are confronted with such a situation, and we must study the situation very carefully in order to subsequently increase the effectiveness of the CSTO’s mechanisms. I think that in this regard your visit is also very important,” Pashinyan noted.
For his part, the CSTO Secretary General touched upon a fairly wide range of topics — the coronavirus pandemic, the 44-day war, the Armenian elections, the situation on the Turkish-Afghan border and around Belarus, and only then spoke about the Caucasian region.
“I know that you are currently working on a government action programme; I will not try to give advice, but I believe that this issue should be one of the government’s priority tasks — to overcome that crisis in order to ensure security on the border, so that we can give our children the opportunity to live in security, within that border, and not on the line of military clashes. I am confident that with such mettle and experience you will resolve that issue through diplomatic-political means,” Zas said.
During Lieutenant-General Zas’s two-day working visit to Armenia, Defence Minister Arshak Karapetyan publicly criticised the CSTO’s activities, saying that the alliance’s decision-making machinery does not meet present-day requirements. Secretary General Zas, for his part, had declared that the clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border are a threat not only to Armenia’s security but to that of the entire CSTO.
