We decide ourselves when to leave CSTO - Pashinyan

YEREVAN, 12 June. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hinted today that Armenia will withdraw from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) after all.

"I said that the existence of our state is under threat. [...] The culprits are those who created a bluff (military) alliance, whose members, as it turned out, have not fulfilled their treaty obligations but were planning together with Azerbaijan a war against us. This is who is to blame,’ he said during a government question-and-answer session in parliament on Wednesday.

In response to a rejoinder from the ranks of the opposition, he said: "We will withdraw (from the CSTO. We will decide when to withdraw. And what do you think the next step should be? We are not going to go back! There is no other way."

Asked by an opposition MP in which direction the authorities were moving, he said: "I will tell you where we are going, moreover - we have almost reached it. We are going to the real Armenia, the Republic of Armenia - a sovereign, secure, peaceful state with delimited borders. Don't worry, we are not going back,’ he said MPs.

During his visit to Azerbaijan this past May, Belarusian President Lukashenko (Belarus is a member of the CSTO), according to local news agencies, said that before the 2020 war against Nagorno-Karabakh, he spoke with Azerbaijani President Aliyev and both came to the conclusion that Azerbaijan could win the war against Armenians.

In a February interview, Pashinyan said Armenia froze its participation in the CSTO because the bloc had failed the country.

Since then, Armenian authorities have skipped all CSTO meetings, and the Yerevan government recently refused to contribute to the CSTO's common budget.-0-