ArmInfo.The decision of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to participate or not to participate in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in 2024 will be the sovereign choice of his country. CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov stated to TASS.
"The participation or non-participation of the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in the CSTO summit in 2024 is the decision of a sovereign and independent country. In addition, there is still time before the summit, a lot can change in these months, hopefully for the better," the organizations' secretary general noted.
At the same time, he emphasized that Armenia's activities in the CSTO continue, all issues on the agenda are resolved in a working manner.
"Relations between the CSTO and Armenia as a member state of our organization are not going through the best period," he noted. "However, Armenia's activities in the CSTO continue, all issues that are on the agenda are being resolved in a working manner."
Commenting on the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from occupied Artsakh, the CSTO Secretary General expressed his conviction that Baku has its own forces to ensure the security of this territory.
"As for the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh: currently this is the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which has its own forces to ensure its security and, obviously, this issue is not being resolved unilaterally. I believe that stability in the region depends to a large extent on the prospects for signing a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan," he noted.
Recently, Yerevan has repeatedly missed meetings in some integration formats. In particular, Pashinyan did not attend the CSTO summit in 2023 in Minsk, and also stated that the republic had suspended participation in this organization.