Zas on Proposed CSTO Assistance to Armenia

The CSTO has proposed to Armenia a comprehensive set of assistance measures, including sending a mission to the border with Azerbaijan to assess the situation. This was stated by the organization’s Secretary-General Stanislav Zas in an interview with Belarusian ONT TV, as reported by РИА Новости.

“The situation is not easy, primarily at the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Ceasefire violations occur almost every day there. Overall, the set of measures that the CSTO is proposing as assistance to Armenia includes various measures—political, diplomatic, and military, including sending a mission to that border where it will realistically assess the situation. Overall support has been received from all member states,” Zas said.

According to him, “the only thing that has not been achieved is a unified assessment of the situation created there.”

It should be noted that last week during the CSTO Collective Security Council meeting in Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan refused to sign the documents on the 'Declaration of the CSTO Collective Security Council and Joint Measures to Assist the Republic of Armenia'.

“The threat of new aggression from Azerbaijan against Armenia's territorial integrity remains. On October 28 of this year, Secretary-General Stanislav Vasilyevich Zas stated this at an extraordinary meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council. Under these conditions, the absence of a politically clear assessment of the situation and the failure to adopt the aforementioned decision could not only signify a rejection of allied obligations by the CSTO but might also be interpreted by Azerbaijan as a green light for further aggression against Armenia from the CSTO,” he stated. “This contradicts not only the letter but also the spirit and essence of the CSTO's fundamental documents. Therefore, based on this, dear colleagues, at this moment, I believe that the presented draft of the 'Declaration of the CSTO Collective Security Council and Joint Measures to Assist the Republic of Armenia' has not been sufficiently finalized, and in this form, with the utmost respect, I am not ready to sign these documents,” Pashinyan concluded.