A meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization was held on 31 May in Almaty, Kazahstan and according to the representative of the secretariat of the military bloc, Yuri Shuvalov, Armenia did not take part in the meeting of the Council of Defense Ministers. The participants discussed the challenges and threats to the military security of the members of the bloc, as well as various problems of the military component of the organization.
The refusal of the Armenian side to participate in CSTO meetings has become a common practice. On November 23 last year, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan refused to arrive at the organization’s summit while in March the same year, Pashinyan allowed the republic’s withdrawal from the CSTO.
In February 2024, on the margins of a meeting in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, Pashinyan said to the media that Armenia was suspending its activities within the CSTO due to the fact that ”from Yerevan’s point of view, the agreement had not been implemented”. He outlined this prospect due to the fact that the military bloc does not respond to Yerevan’s requests to send a monitoring group to the republic. Pashinyan then made it clear that the CSTO was “leaving Armenia.”
Pashinyan has also taken practical steps to reduce Russia’s military presence in Armenia. He ordered the evacuation of Russian border guards from the Zvartnots airport in Yerevan, as well as from sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. This month, Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan, revealed details of the talks between Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which took place during the May meetings of the CIS leaders in Moscow. According to him, Putin offered Pashinyan to withdraw the Russian military from the border of Armenia with Iran and Turkey, and Yerevan did not want to. The Russian Foreign Ministry denied this information.
Armenia has de facto withdrawn from the CSTO. Pashinyan openly said that the republic’s participation in the organization was “frozen.” Furthermore, Yerevan has decided that in 2024 it will not participate in financing the work of the bloc. Russia is irritated by the uncertainty of Armenia’s presence in the CSTO. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked Yerevan to give a final and clear answer.
Ignoring Eurasian formats, Armenian officials find time for almost monthly meetings with partners from the United States, the EU and NATO. A delegation led by Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan, who skipped the meeting in Almaty, flew to Brussels on May 28. His colleagues from the European Union and NATO gathered there to discuss further support to Ukraine.