Pashinyan Explains Why Armenia Agreed to Hold Trilateral Meeting in Germany

According to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, expectations from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have never been about immediate military intervention. He stated this today, February 28, during a question and answer session with government members in the National Assembly, in response to a question from Shirak Torosyan, a deputy from the ruling Civil Contract party, regarding the purpose of the CSTO.

“Let it not be suggested that we have tried to drag the CSTO into a war and thereby put our partners in a bad position. We have acted in accordance with the documents of the CSTO. And first and foremost, we expect a political stance; this is a very important nuance. We raised this issue after the events of May 2021 when we said that the CSTO has responsibilities in different countries, and we sought an answer to a simple question. We asked, what will CSTO observers do when they come? We stated that let us agree on what the CSTO’s responsibility area is within the territory of Armenia and in the South Caucasus. Once the answer to this question was heard, there would be no further questions, because everything would be operated through already established mechanisms,” he said.

Pashinyan reiterated that they have proposed to provide a political and diplomatic assessment and suggested a thesis according to which the CSTO would utilize all political and diplomatic tools to resolve the issue.

Pashinyan also clarified why the Armenian government agreed to hold a trilateral meeting in Germany. “Why Germany? Because Germany is supportive of the four-party meeting in Granada, and it has endorsed three important principles: recognizing the territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the Alma-Ata Declaration, the delimitation and demarcation processes should be based on the Almaty Declaration, and regional communications should operate under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries and adhere to principles of equality and reciprocity. If any mediator attempts to deviate from this framework, it is unacceptable for Armenia,” Pashinyan concluded.