Armenia doesn't see itself as CSTO member, return impossible - Pashinyan

YEREVAN. Dec 4 (Interfax) - Armenia does not see itself as a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and believes its return to the organization is no longer possible, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

"As concerns the documents [adopted at the CSTO summit in Kazakhstan], we've said that we freeze our participation in the CSTO's activities, which means that we don't participate either in drafting documents or in discussions, we don't put forward any proposals, and we simply don't veto anything," Pashinyan said at a government Q&A session at the parliament on Wednesday.

"In fact, we already see ourselves outside of the CSTO," he said.

"Let them decide what they want. We aren't meddling in their affairs and are not saying that we de jure have a veto right. That's with all respect for our colleagues," Pashinyan said.

The difference in Armenia's and Russia's perceptions of the CSTO situation and their public expression "makes Armenia's return to the CSTO increasingly more difficult if not impossible," he said.

"I believe we've passed the point of no return in this matter," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in commenting on the outcomes of the CSTO summit at the end of November, "Armenia has said it is taking a pause, but it hasn't declared its withdrawal from the organization, and it supports all documents that have been adopted at today's meeting, and it's drawn our attention to this. If this is so, then there's a chance that Armenia will resume its full-format work within the CSTO. Well, we shall see."

Putin suggested that the current crisis in Armenia's relations with the CSTO was prompted by the domestic political situation in the country and the aftermath of the events in Karabakh.

Pashinyan said on Wednesday that Putin's remarks "make the general situation in the CSTO obvious."

"Our position is unequivocal: there were territorial claims and aggression against Armenia in 2021 and in 2022. We saw that the situation was developing in this very direction. And we discussed the issue with our allies in the first place, receiving a reply that that couldn't happen as Armenia's borders were a red line for them," Pashinyan said.

Later, "we told our allies that the red line indicated by them had been crossed, to which they answered that the borders were apparently not delimitated," he said.

"Then we asked where the red line actually passed so that we could understand our relations with the CSTO. We asked them to show us the area of the CSTO's responsibility in Armenia, but they failed to show it. Then I said that, if the CSTO didn't have an area of responsibility in Armenia, then this organization actually didn't exist," Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan denied that the developments in Karabakh had anything to do with Armenia's relations with the CSTO. "In the context of the freeze of our participation in the CSTO, we absolutely didn't touch upon the subject of Karabakh," he said.

Asked by a parliamentarian what prompted Armenia to delay its formal withdrawal from the CSTO, Pashinyan replied, "There's no delay. There's our understanding of speed and pace. You see that we're following a particular direction very clearly and consistently."