PM: How will CSTO monitor Armenia territory if it does not say which that territory is?

• 02.08.2023, 18:01
•  World,  Armenia

There are many misunderstandings related to the topic, including among the expert community of Armenia. How did it happen that a CSTO monitoring mission does not arrive, whereas the EU monitoring mission does? Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced this Wednesday in the National Assembly off Armenia.

According to him, there is a clear understanding of the CSTO's area of responsibility.

"We [i.e., Armenia] have asked the CSTO for one of the most important principled things: to clarify the CSTO’s area of responsibility in Armenia. That is, to tell us their idea of which the Republic of Armenia [(RA)] is. We have not received an answer to this question.

On the other hand, why has the mission of the EU civilian mission become possible? Because as a result of the quadrilateral meeting held in Prague, the EU has clearly outlined, including with the participation and agreement of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which the Republic of Armenia is. That is, they said: ‘This is the map of Armenia in our opinion,’ or we have said [it], and they confirmed [it]. They come to observe, monitor the area. Without an idea of the territory, the monitoring mission will be at least bizarre because it is not clear to them what they are observing," said Pashinyan.

He added that this issue arose from the situation when Azerbaijan occupied the territories of Armenia.

"If any mission does not know which the territory of the RA is, how will it monitor whether the territory of Armenia is occupied or not?" the PM asked, news.am reports.

Pashinyan touched on another aspect, stating: "Before the EU mission, Azerbaijan was explaining its aggressive actions against Armenia on the western platforms by the fact that Armenia, the RA prime minister is bringing more and more Russian troops and deploying [them] on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, a joint Armenian-Russian aggressive attack is being prepared against Azerbaijan, and its Azerbaijan tries to more or less balance the situation with aggressive attacks to manage its vulnerabilities.

In the West, an attempt was being made to portray Armenia as a participant in Russia's aggressive policy, and in the Russian Federation, an attempt was being made to portray it as a participant in the Western conspiracy. Since the Russian partners had representatives on the spot, our Western partners had already begun to look at us suspiciously, that ‘in fact you are going to carry out aggressive actions because there are large concentrations of Armenian and Russian troops there, that you are going to attack Azerbaijan. Poor Azerbaijanis want to capture heights to balance.’ Realizing that a lot of resources are being spent on it, we said: ‘Very well, you come, monitor on the spot, see if it all corresponds to reality or not."

The Armenian premier assured that there is no geopolitical context in all this, and there is a specific agenda, a specific issue that the Armenian side is trying to resolve.