Armenia will leave a Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed yesterday for the first time, as tensions grow with Russia.
Nikol Pashinyan declared in parliament that “we will leave”, and that “we will decide the timing of our exit,” News.am reports.
He accused the former authorities of the country of joining “bubble union”, whose member have reportedly planned a war against Armenia with Azerbaijan.
The Moscow-led security bloc is made up of six countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
However, Pashinyan has accused the CSTO of failing to intervene after Armenia was attacked by neighboring Azerbaijan in 2022. He has also said Russian peacekeepers failed in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive that sparked the mass exodus of its 100,000 ethnic Armenian residents.
As a result, Armenia had vowed it would “freeze” its membership of the alliance, recall its representatives and would not contribute financially to its budget. Moscow has insisted that Yerevan will be “obliged” to pay its dues regardless.
