CSTO urges Armenia to make the decision

Imangali Tasmagambetov, the CSTO General Secretary, made the following statement: Armenia should make clear its future relations with the Organization. He emphasized that clarification of future prospects would be useful for all the CSTO member states in order to make comprehensive plans for future joint activities.

Tasmagambetov noted that despite the decreased level of Yerevan’s participation in CSTO, the key mechanisms of interaction are still in place and functioning. The General Secretary added that Armenia maintains full membership in the organization, and all the commitments of Yerevan also are valid in full.

What are Armenia’s plans with respect to CSTO? 

Igor Korotchenko, the General Director of the Caspian Institute for Strategic Studies (Russia), a political analyst, in his interview to the Vestnik Kavkaza correspondent drew attention to the uncertainty of the official Yerevan’s position on the CSTO membership: on one hand, Armenia does not participate in the events, but on the other hand – it does not exit. 

«I think that Armenia despite the already selected pro-Western course believes the rude demarches against the CSTO and the Russian Federation to be too risky, as they may cause the response, which may turn out to be undesirable for the Armenian authorities. This response may be in the form of potential economic restrictions and may be rather sensitive for Armenian economy. On top of that, the process of «divorce» with the CSTO is lengthy, and it is connected with the need for Armenia to synchronize it with receiving bonuses from the West. That is why Pashinyan’s tactics are absolutely opportunistic, and his moving to the ultimate goal of exiting the  CSTO is very slow and to a certain extent zigzag-shaped», – he commented. 

«Today, the political situation in Armenia is quite challenging, it is connected with energizing Pashinyan’s political opponents represented not only by the Karabakh clan, but by Armenian Apostolic Church and by global Armenian expat community. If Armenia is undertaking abrupt measures to exit the CSTO and is demonstrating hostility towards Russia, this could aggravate the situation for the ruling regime. That is why Nikol Pashinyan will be acting very carefully. Probably, the CSTO exit scenario will be implemented either at the end of 2024, or in 2025 – but it will happen anyway. It is not for nothing that Armenia froze its actual participation in the activities of the CSTO charter bodies and refused from taking part in joint military exercises and from contributing its membership fees to the budget of the Organization», Igor Korotchenko said. 

«Armenia’s behavior is not results-oriented, it is hostile and is underpinned by the Euro-Atlantic choice made by the currently ruling Armenian elites. That is why, I regret to say, Armenia’s exit from the CSTO is just a question of time. The main question here is whether the levers are still in place to stop Yerevan from reckless erroneous decisions? We need to enhance our expert-analytical assessment of the on-going processes, especially given the fact that analytics is of high demand in the CSTO. Imangali Tasmagambetov, the CSTO General Secretary, spoke about it several times, and this was also discussed at the summit of the CSTO Defense Ministers in Kazakhstan. Long-term unbiased forecasts and the respective expert analytics of good quality are required. There is a need for brainstorming exercise: is it possible to stop Armenia from catastrophic consequences», the political analyst emphasized.