CSTO Has Alienated Itself and Is Not Functioning: We Constantly Dream of Being an Appendix to Some Country, Says Simonyan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted that Armenia's de facto non-participation in the CSTO represents frozen relations. This was stated by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, during a briefing with journalists.

“We asked a question to the CSTO, which remained unanswered: what is the area of responsibility of the CSTO? Don’t you want to come and see what it is? Do you recognize the borders of Armenia? With which borders did Armenia join the CSTO? As long as there is no answer to this question, I believe that the CSTO has alienated itself and is not functioning,” he noted.

When asked why Armenia does not withdraw from the CSTO in that case, Simonyan replied: “We are waiting to see what will happen. I want you to trust a little in our domestic political stance and tactics, trust a little more. There are many things I cannot voice loudly, but I fully share the outrage, anger, and attitude of every citizen of Armenia towards the CSTO. I do not understand the logic of constantly dreaming that we would be an appendix to some country. I believe that alternatives must be sought to ensure Armenia’s security by all possible means and not to put everything in one basket.”

“We did it this way, and when the moment came, when we were confident that it was impossible for our ally not to protect us, it turned out that our ally allowed this and also turned a blind eye to many things. Later, we were accused—violating the timeline—of supposedly being the reason for it. Perhaps in their country, which has 12 time zones, but everyone in Armenia knows when something happened. That experience did not work here and raised an anti-Russian wave in Armenia to the extent that even opposition figures who defend Russian MPs did not allow themselves to talk about it. We did not do that; their actions did it, the lies they filled the screens with when people who do not like us said that it was a lie,” he added.