Armenia Stops Financial Contributions To Russian-Led Military Alliance

By RFE/RL's Armenian Service May 08, 2024

YEREVAN -- Armenia said on May 8 that it has stopped making financial contributions to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) after effectively suspending its membership in the Russian-led military alliance.

"Armenia will refrain from signing up to the November 23, 2023, decision on the CSTO budget for 2024 and, thereby, from participating in the financing of the organization's activities," Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ani Badalian told several media outlets, including Armenia's Public Television.

At the same time, Badalian said Yerevan will not block other member states, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, from doing so.

For more than a year, Armenia has boycotted high-level meetings, military exercises, and other activities of the CSTO in what Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian described in February as an effective suspension of its membership of the organization.

The premier repeatedly said afterwards that he could pull his country out of the alliance of six ex-Soviet states altogether unless it addressed Yerevan's concerns.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed last week that Armenia formally remains a full-fledged member of the CSTO and must therefore "fulfill appropriate obligations" to the organization.

Armenia officially asked Russia and other CSTO member states for support after Azerbaijan launched offensive military operations along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in September 2022. Yerevan has repeatedly accused them of ignoring the request. Moscow denies that.

The threats to leave the CSTO reflect Armenia's deepening rift with Moscow.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged in March that Pashinian's administration is "leading things to the collapse of Russian-Armenian relations" at the behest of the West.

Pashinian and other Armenian leaders say they are only "diversifying" their foreign and security policies because of what they call Russia's failure to honor its security commitments to the South Caucasus country.

Coincidentally, Pashinian is visiting Moscow on May 8 to chair the summit of another Russian-led grouping - the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) - in which Armenia currently holds the rotating presidency. Other members of the EEU are Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

The Kremlin later confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pashinian had held face-to-face talks at the session.

"On our bilateral relations are developing quite successfully," Putin told Pashinian, according to AFP.

The Russia leader did not mention tensions between the two nations, saying only that "we always, first and foremost, pay attention to economic cooperation."

With reporting by AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-csto-budget-russia- pashinian-putin/32938561.html

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