Currently, the issue of Armenia's withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is not under discussion. This was announced on Thursday, February 1, by Viktor Vasiliev, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry for CSTO issues.
“The documents adopted during the aforementioned session of the CSTO Collective Security Council, where the Armenian side did not participate, are now under consideration by Yerevan. According to some of these documents, there is agreement from the Armenian side, from which we can conclude that the question of Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO does not arise,” he said in a conversation with “RIA News”.
Vasiliev, answering the question about Armenia’s non-participation in CSTO events, emphasized that this is solely Yerevan’s choice, although, as the ambassador noted, it was made under external pressure.
Earlier, on October 25, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia remains part of the CSTO for now.
On October 9, informed sources told Izvestia that Armenia has not yet submitted a candidacy for the post of permanent representative of the republic in the CSTO, while Yerevan has not taken steps aimed at leaving the organization.
At the same time, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov noted on October 13 that Russia and Armenia continue to remain neighbors and allies, united by a common history and a common future.
In September, Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturian signed a decree recalling the republic’s permanent representative to the CSTO, Viktor Biyagov, and he received a new appointment as ambassador to the Netherlands and the country’s permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Relations between Armenia and the CSTO deteriorated in November 2022, when the prime minister of the Transcaucasian republic refused to sign the draft declaration of the CSTO CSTO “On joint measures to assist the Republic of Armenia” due to the lack of a clear, according to Nikol Pashinyan, political assessment of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh .
Later, in May 2023, the Armenian leader allowed the country to leave the CSTO. On September 27, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, announced the information available to the Russian side about the actions being taken in Brussels and Washington to persuade Yerevan to leave the CSTO.
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