Armenian leader Nikol Pashinyan will not attend the CSTO summit this week, but at the same time he has promised that he will not use the right of veto and will not prevent allies from signing documents at the summit.
Oku.Az reports that NEWS.ru published information about it.
Pashinyan reportedly still sits on two chairs, boycotting the work of the CSTO, but has also stopped threatening his allies with threats to leave the Organization. I wonder why?
Gevorg Mirzayan, associate professor at the Russian University of Finance, expressed his opinion on this in an interview with NEWS.ru.
“The essence of the game is simple: the resumption of military operations between Armenia and Azerbaijan cannot be ruled out. Now Pashinyan refuses to reconcile with Baku by fulfilling the tasks of its foreign curators. Thus, Pashinyan tries to somehow stay afloat against in the context of Armenian public opinion,” says Mirzoyan.
According to the expert, the leader of Armenia would like to leave the CSTO and provoke his country into a war with its neighbor, as a result of which it would be possible to turn Armenia into a “large military base of the United States.” On the other hand, “the blame for the defeat in the war could fall on Russia.”
“From this point of view, Pashinyan really needs Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO. Then all of Pashinyan’s media outlets will explain his upcoming defeat to Azerbaijan in a very simple way: Russia has pulled Armenia out of the CSTO, thus depriving it of protection. And the question immediately arises: what about France and the defense of the United States?” said the expert.
Yerevan is a friend of the Russian Federation in the economic sphere, but boycotts it in politics. Armenia ignores its military and political allies in the CSTO and at the same time develops trade with Moscow. Experts note that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has adopted this dual position for a long time.
“In Yerevan they believe that the CSTO does not fulfill its functions of protecting Armenia, that is why they refuse to participate in CSTO events. But at the same time they refuse to leave the organization. Sometimes we leave, sometimes we don’t,” says Pashinyan. invented the formula,” says Mirzayan. The expert recalls that such a statement does not appear in the CSMT statutes.
“But Moscow is not following Pashinyan’s game; until now the country’s leaders have behaved very cautiously,” says the political scientist.
Independent military expert Alexander Khramchikhin notes that Yerevan is trying to distance itself politically from Russia, and this is reflected in everything.
“Pashinyan even wants to buy our weapons not from us, but through India or Greece. There is nothing new. This has been his principled position for a long time. Even issues related to the economy: where and how much to buy, more expensive . or cheaper, it no longer has a role that he does not play,” Khramchikhin explained to NEWS.ru.
Vadim Kozyulin, director of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, noted that in recent months Yerevan stopped threatening to leave the CSTO. It does not rule out that Pashinyan’s behavior has been influenced by the turn in the foreign policy of neighboring Georgia, through which the only land route between Armenia and the European Union passes.
“A certain warming in relations between Moscow and Tbilisi may affect both Pashinyan’s rhetoric and actions. Despite all his “anti-Russianism”, he remains a pragmatic politician. He should keep in mind that although Armenia is geographically far from France or the United States, is close to Russia and Georgia. Of course, this is not Pashinyan’s main motivation, but to some extent he takes into account the new trend in Russian-Georgian relations”, – Kozyulin. He told NEWS.ru.
