Tuesday, April 23 2024 12:39

ArmInfo.Russia conducted an equal and parallel policy towards Armenia and Azerbaijan. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated in an interview with British media representatives, answering the question of how sincere the Azerbaijanis or Russians are in their desire to move towards normalization, or they are paving the way for the future hostile of aggressive activities.

As Pashinyan noted, "When I spoke about the diversification of  relationships, I said that everyone is diversifying their  relationships, Russia also is diversifying its relationships in the  South Caucasus. It began before us. And that's where the issue with  the CSTO emerged, because currently within the CSTO, and from the  positions of the CSTO, and this began quite a long time ago, even  before the 2020 war, Russia conducted an equal and parallel policy  towards Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The policy of diversifying relationships in this region started from  the Russian Federation, actually there is a date of it, between  2012-2013 Russia's policy was that Armenia was Russia's ally in the  South Caucasus, and Azerbaijan was a partner, and, by the way, that  was all in the framework of the CSTO. The whole meaning of that was  that the CSTO was very specifically to safeguard the security of the  Republic of Armenia. But in 2013 Russia and Azerbaijan signed several  billion USD worth arms acquisition contract, and that was the point  after which the Russian Federation started to diversify its  relationship with Azerbaijan.

I want to draw our attention to the fact that on February 21 or 22 of  2022 Russia and Azerbaijan signed a strategic partnership  declaration. That declaration stipulates, among other things, the  need to agree upon policies, and this is a public document. One can  assume that something that is declared between countries, including  security cooperation, consultation on policies, is actually  happening, otherwise such a declaration would have no meaning.

Why would countries sign a declaration if they were not to implement  it? Especially when even before the signing of that declaration there  were at least two situations in which it was clearly manifested that  the CSTO was not implementing its responsibilities towards Armenia.

There is a recent interesting case, when our counterparts from the  Russian Federation say that they suggested sending the CSTO  peacekeepers to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. I am sorry, but that  statement destroys the functionality of the CSTO, because if they  were to come, they would have come to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border  as an ally of Armenia, not as peacekeepers or peacemakers. Many say  Armenia said about the CSTO this or that, or this is what Armenia did  within the CSTO, but Armenia did nothing to the CSTO, the CSTO did to  itself with its statements, actions and inaction.

Under these circumstances we cannot pretend that we are not noticing  all of that. At the moment we have in practice frozen our  participation in the CSTO, and as I can see if there is still a  possibility of warming up our relationship with the organization, but  if things continue the way they are, if the political statements  continue, than that line will also be crossed for resuming  participation in the CSTO, which will then be rendered as practically  impossible," the RA Prime Minister emphasized.