Parliament speaker comments on Pashinyan's statement: CSTO is not functioning

YEREVAN, February 27. /ARKA/. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has turned itself off and is not functioning, Armenian National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan told reporters on Tuesday, saying also that the Russian-led military pact has not provided answers to a set of questions asked by Armenia in the wake of Azerbaijani invasion of parts of sovereign Armenian territory in 2021 and 2022.

"If we generalize, we asked the CSTO one question, which remained unanswered. Where is the CSTO zone of responsibility and does it recognize the borders of the Republic of Armenia?", Simonyan said.

Commenting on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's latest statement that Armenia "frose" its membership in the CSTO, Simonyan noted that that "our actual non-participation is tantamount to frozen relations."

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with France 24 that Armenia's participation in the CSTO is "frozen." The organization's secretariat said that no such applications have been received from the Armenian side.

In November 2022, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan refused to sign a declaration of the CSTO summit because it did not condemn Azerbaijan's aggression aaginst Armenia.

Pashinyan also said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Azerbaijan's aggressive actions and inaction of the CSTO forced Armenia to seek to diversify its relations in the security area.

Since then Armenian top officials snubbed all CSTO gatherings. Yerevan also chose not to fill its quota for the CSTO Deputy Secretary General. Armenia also recalled its ambassador from the military alliance and has not appointed a replacement. -0-