Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan criticized Wednesday the failure of a Russia-led security alliance to come aid to his country in the face of the aggression by Azerbaijan, as he pointed out.
Venting his frustration in his opening remarks to a summit in the Armenian capital, Yerevan – as Russian President Vladimir Putin looked on – Pashinyan called into question the effectiveness of CSTO, the six-nation Collective Security Treaty Organisation where Russia is seen as the dominant player.
Besides Russia and Armenia, CSTO comprises Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Pashinyan told the meeting that it’s depressing that Azerbaijan was not deterred from aggressive actions by Armenia’s membership in the CSTO, protesting at the same time CSTO’s failure to reach a decision on a response to that aggression.
Noting that all of this has done grave harm to CSTO’s image both inside Armenia and outside its borders, the Armenian PM stressed that he considers this the main failure of Armenia’s chairmanship of the CSTO.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow has long been the main power broker in the south Caucasus where Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two major wars and have been wrangling for decades over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, the enclave is largely controlled by the Yerevan-supported majority ethnic Armenian population.
But Russia risks losing influence in the region it has long seen as its sphere of influence as it struggles in its nine-month-old war in Ukraine. Although it has sent almost 2,000 peacekeeping troops under a 2020 ceasefire deal, Moscow has so far been unable to help resolve the legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the ethnic Armenians, among other outstanding issues.
Acknowledging some unspecified “problems” facing the CSTO, Putin said more effort was needed to bring about peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, pointing out, among other things, the solving of humanitarian problems, implementation of the agreements on defining both countries’ borders, unblocking transport and communications links as preconditions for that to happen.
Azerbaijan, which is not a member of the CSTO, enjoys, on the other hand, strong backing from Türkiye.
Back in September, when fighting flared again between Armenia and Azerbaijan claiming the lives of more than 200 soldiers, Yerevan requested assistance from the CSTO, but only received a promise that observers will be sent.
Pashinyan justified his frustration by stressing that, on the other hand, CSTO was fast to send troops to Kazakhstan – another CSTO member – to help President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev survive a wave of unrest in January.
After deadly violence spread across the tightly controlled former Soviet state, Russia also sent paratroopers into Kazakhstan to quell the countrywide uprising.
