Russian diplomat claims Armenia's security impossible without CSTO
YEREVAN, February 1. /ARKA/. Armenia's security is not possible without the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Russian Foreign Ministry's Ambassador-at-Large for CSTO Affairs Viktor Vasilyev said in an interview with RIA Novosti news agency.
"I cannot disclose to you the information that clearly shows that Armenia's security, including in the military-technical field, is not possible without cooperation within the CSTO," Vasilyev said.
The Russian diplomat added that Moscow sees the attempts of the Western countries to use the situation in Armenia to inflame the situation not only in that country, but also in the entire Caucasus.
"We use the discussions within the CSTO at all levels in order to focus the attention of our Armenian colleagues on this deliberate policy of the Western countries," he ssaid.
Russian diplomat’s remarks came after Javier Colomina, NATO secretary general’s special representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, praised Armenia for moving away from Russia and seeking closer ties with the alliance,
“We are very encouraged by the decisions that Armenia has decided to take in their foreign policy and defense policy, the shift they have decided to implement,” Javier Colomina, said in an interview with Armenian Armenpress news agency.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was the first to respond to Colomina’s praise saying Wednesday that ‘Armenia should open the map and look at the region, the countries between which it is situated … The West gives promises to everyone, and I just wonder which of them have been fulfilled and where,” .
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Defense Minister Suren Papikyan refused to participate in a joint meeting of the CSTO foreign and defense ministers last November in Belarusian capital Minsk. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan neither traveled to Minsk for the CSTO summit.
Earlier, Pashinyan 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.
Pashinyan told a last year press conference that Armenia would not host CSTO military exercises in 2023, saying Armenia expected the Russia-led military pact to make a clear-cut assessment of Azerbaijan’s continued occupation of chunks of Armenia’s sovereign territories. Pashinyan said Armenia wanted to 'understand what the area of the CSTO’s responsibility is.”
In another rift between Armenia and CSTO Yerevan 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 yet. -0-
