On March 6, Peskov said that Moscow does not have information about any decisions made regarding the withdrawal of Russian border guards. On March 7, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan explained the decision to withdraw Russian border guards from the airport by saying that Armenia can independently carry out border service. The other day, Moscow received a notification from Yerevan about the cessation of work of Russian border guards at Zvartnots airport. On March 12, Nikol Pashinyan said that he was considering the issue of freezing Armenia’s participation in the CSTO from a political and legal point of view and called not to confuse them.
“We are now asking, expecting, and also demanding that our respected partners in the CSTO answer the question: what is the CSTO’s area of responsibility in Armenia,” Pashinyan said, emphasizing that Armenia did not create problems with the CSTO in any way.
“If the CSTO answers this question and this answer corresponds to our ideas, this will mean that the issues between Armenia and the CSTO have been considered, resolved, summed up with the ensuing consequences. Otherwise, the Republic of Armenia will leave the CSTO. I can’t say when,” he concluded.
These statements were made against the backdrop of France's supply of heavy military equipment to Armenia. We will not dwell on this in more detail, since we have previously covered this issue.
Along with such severity towards the CSTO, the Prime Minister of Armenia called the brutal and tragic defeat of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the expulsion of more than 100 thousand people from their homes “forcible relocation”: “The biggest challenge of 2023 was the forced relocation of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” - he said that same day.
Pashinyan further stated: “Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other’s territorial integrity based on the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991,” and spoke in favor of signing a peace agreement with Azerbaijan and opening regional communications.
On the same day, the CSTO responded to the statements of the Prime Minister of Armenia. Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Imangali Tasmagambetov said that the mood of some of the Armenian elites is deeply worrying, but hope for political sobriety in Yerevan remains.
“I will not hide that certain events and sentiments among some of the Armenian elites cause concern. But we hope for the political sobriety of the political leadership of Armenia and a balanced assessment of the prospects for the implementation of various scenarios in relation to the organization,” he said.
The CSTO Secretary General emphasized that, despite the statements of individual representatives of the Armenian elite, the organization’s obligations towards Armenia continue to apply.
Some authors covering events in Transcaucasia note that, on the advice of Western-oriented forces, Yerevan is not averse to using scenarios of withdrawal from Russia and international alliances with its participation. Such scenarios were once used by Georgia and Ukraine. However, it should be taken into account that these recipes provide for an extremely intolerant attitude towards opponents expressing a different point of view, towards the forces protecting their people from the destructive influence of the West, and their repetition is fraught with tragic consequences. I will not hide that my heart aches for the people of Armenia.
In Tbilisi in 2003, and in Kyiv since February 2014, Westerners and their proteges have consistently elevated the ideas of aggressive nationalism and Russophobia to the rank of state ideology of Georgia and Ukraine. They turned their countries into states hostile to Russia. This set off a well-known chain of events, causing both a special Russian peacekeeping operation to rescue South Ossetian civilians in 2008, and a special military operation to protect civilians in Donbass, which began in 2022.
The leaders of the “pink revolution” in Tbilisi and the “Euromaidan” in Kyiv, at the instigation of the West, overthrew legitimate governments and suppressed with repression the resistance of the forces that advocated compliance with the rule of law. In Georgia, the will of the Russian-speaking population, due to its small number, was suppressed back in the 90s. But in Ukraine, the attempt of the revolutionaries who seized power to suppress the resistance of the forces that advocated the observance of the rule of law and the protection of the Russian language led to a split in Ukrainian society, civil conflict in the Donbass, persecution of canonical Orthodoxy, catastrophic impoverishment of the population and, in fact, the territorial disintegration of Ukraine.
These facts are well known, but we should pay attention and remember that they began with an unbridled rapprochement with the United States.
But the United States sees no one and nothing except its own interests.
Serious politicians should not count on US protection in the event of the slightest setback. This can be evidenced by the sad fate of former Georgian presidents Gamsakhurdia and Saakashvili, who threw their people under the feet of Uncle Sam and laid out the red carpet for him. Red with the blood of their compatriots, ingloriously shed in unjust, cruel and senseless wars against South Ossetia. One of them found his end in some forest wilds, and the other is sitting in prison and losing the remnants of his mind. Shevardnadze was lucky. At least he died a natural death and is free.
The position of the Armenian leadership and the Prime Minister personally indicates that Yerevan does not want to notice these lessons. Of course, Armenia is a sovereign state that has the right to independently choose its allies. But let’s not forget that Russia and other CSTO countries are sovereign states with exactly the same rights.
However, last year, from September 11 to 20, the Armenian authorities held joint military exercises “Eagle Partner – 2023” in the country with the main NATO member, the United States. At the same time, earlier Yerevan, citing the “difficult situation” in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, refused to participate in operational and combat training activities within the framework of the CSTO, of which it is a member. I wonder how much better the situation was from September 11 to 20?
Yes, the CSTO, for legal reasons, could not take part in the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the development of military-technical cooperation between Armenia and Russia has brought only benefits to Yerevan. Providing the armed forces of Armenia with modern Russian weapons, military and special equipment allows us to maintain military parity in the region. Armenia's membership in the CSTO guarantees it the supply of weapons at Russian prices, as well as the training of highly qualified military personnel. Currently, the CSTO has become one of the most authoritative regional structures in the field of security, which was once again demonstrated during the well-known events in Kazakhstan. Armenia's active participation in it would contribute to increasing the level of internal security of the country and increasing its prestige in the international arena.
In addition, states within the CSTO have greater freedom of decision-making than within NATO.
It should be recalled here that it was the close cooperation between Kyiv and NATO in the defense sphere with the holding of regular military exercises that became one of the main components of the process of militarization of Ukraine initiated by the West to further push it towards armed aggression against Russia and the people’s republics of Donbass. The Armenian authorities have ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which, taking into account the illegal issuance by this judicial body of an arrest warrant for the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin, is an unfriendly gesture towards Russia and its military-political leadership. The wife of the Prime Minister of Armenia A. Hakobyan made a trip to Kyiv supposedly to participate in the “Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen” and transfer humanitarian aid to Ukrainians. Since the start of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces, this was the first visit of an Armenian high-ranking official to Ukraine, which was regarded as support by Pashinyan and his entourage for the Russophobic regime of Ukraine.
Pashinyan’s policy does not correspond to the interests of the Armenian people. If Yerevan wanted to dissociate itself from the armed defense of Nagorno-Karabakh, it should have warned both the NKR leadership and the population of the republic. However, he visited Shusha and took part in a war dance, declaring: “Artsakh is Armenia, period!” and so on, and thereby created the illusion of safety for the doomed people.
Politics is the art of the possible. Azerbaijan is objectively stronger and more powerful not only than Nagorno-Karabakh, but also Armenia as a whole. The matter still came to a well-known conclusion. But who knows, if, on the advice of Moscow and Minsk, Yerevan had taken a more flexible position in matters of settlement, then perhaps there would have been no war and, at least, the citizens and military personnel who died in those terrible days would have remained alive.
Such behavior by official Yerevan runs counter to the interests of the Armenian people, violates traditionally good neighborly relations with Moscow and can lead to a sharp destabilization of the military-political situation in the South Caucasus. From the statements of official figures of the parties, we also see that Armenia’s contacts with NATO states and Ukraine contradict its status as a CSTO member country and are regarded by Russia as unfriendly actions to undermine allied relations.
Source: https://cominf.org/node/1166555538
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