Armenia ceases financing of CSTO - Foreign Ministry

YEREVAN. May 8 (Interfax) - Armenia is ceasing its financing of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)'s activities, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan said.

"The Republic of Armenia will abstain from joining the CSTO Collective Security Council's decision of November 23, 2023, On the CSTO 2024 Budget, and from participating in the organization's financing stipulated by that decision," Badalyan told Interfax on Wednesday.

Armenia will not object to a decision on the CSTO's 2024 budget in a limited format, she said.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said earlier that he had no answer to the question as to why Armenia continued to be a CSTO member.

Speaking in an interview with British media outlets, Pashinyan said the CSTO failed to employ response mechanisms when the Azerbaijani Armed Forces violated its borders in 2021 and 2022, while conceding that the borders were not delimitated.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said the country still remained a CSTO member but refused to be part of a dysfunctional mechanism.

"You know that during the recent couple of years, there were several incursions into the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, and we are a member of CSTO, the mission of which is to protect the sovereign territories and the borders of the member states. So when we had these invasions, we did not see proper action from the organization in which we are [a member]," Mirzoyan said in an interview to Al Jazeera.

"The absence of a proper reaction raised several questions in Armenian society, and we don't want to be a part of a mechanism that does not work. We are still a member of the CSTO, but we should work on making sure that all the mechanisms which are prescribed work, and there is a need for that," Mirzoyan said.