No documents on Armenia's withdrawal from the CSTO have been received - Lavrov

YEREVAN, December 5. /ARКА/. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has not received any document from Armenia notifying its withdrawal from the organization, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today.

"We hear these conversations about Armenia's withdrawal from the CSTO, the Armenian Prime Minister spoke and discussed this issue a lot in Armenian parliament. We are not imposing anything on anyone," Lavrov said following the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Malta.

Lavrov said he was convinced that it is in the interests of Armenia's security to use CSTO membership to the maximum.

"If a decision is made, which he (Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan) speaks of as a foregone conclusion, it will be the sovereign right of the current Armenian leadership. Russia and other CSTO members have not taken and are not going to take any actions that would be perceived as closing the door for Yerevan," Lavrov said.

‘Armenia's return to the Collective Security Treaty Organization is becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Wednesday.

He recalled that in 2021-2022, Armenia was subjected to aggression by Azerbaijan, and official Yerevan discussed this situation with its CSTO allies: they said that Armenia's borders were a red line for them.

"When the aggression occurred, we turned to our CSTO partners, informing them that Azerbaijan had crossed the red line. But they claimed that Armenia's border had not been delimited. We asked them where they thought these red lines were then? Where does the CSTO think Armenia's border is? They didn't show us anything, after which I said that if the organization does not know where Armenia's borders are, then the CSTO does not exist," the Armenian prime minister said. -0-