Armenia will not participate in the CSTO summit for the first time

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has informed Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko that he will not attend the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Minsk. He expressed hope that the organization's partners would understand this decision.

Source. This is stated in the Telegram channel of the Armenian government.

The summit is scheduled for November 23, 2023,

Earlier in October, Pashinyan also skipped the CIS summit in Bishkek.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Pashinyan's refusal to attend the CSTO summit, said that if this is the case, "we can only express regret, because such meetings are a good opportunity to synchronize watches."

Pashinyan and representatives of the Armenian Foreign Ministry have repeatedly stated that Yerevan is not currently discussing the possibility of withdrawing from the CSTO, but representatives of the country have not been participating in the organization's events in recent months.

Reportedly, Armenia also recalled its ambassador from the CSTO and did not appoint a new head of the diplomatic mission.

In late October, in a conversation with The Wall Street Journal, Pashinyan expressed dissatisfaction with the way the CSTO and Russia fulfill their alliance obligations. According to him, Armenia needs to diversify its national security relations.

Background. In November 2022, during the CSTO summit in Yerevan, Pashinyan refused to sign the final declaration, citing the fact that the document did not contain a "clear political assessment of Azerbaijan's aggression." Later, Armenia canceled the CSTO exercises that were to be held in the country in 2023.