The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) expects that the document on joint measures to provide assistance to Armenia will be adopted after revision, CSTO Secretary general Stanislav Zas said at a press conference, summing up the results of the organization’s activity in 2022, TASS reports.
“As a result of the work of the CSTO mission in Armenia, a draft decision of the Collective Security Council on joint measures to provide assistance to the Republic of Armenia was prepared, which was considered at the session of the Collective Security Council on November 23 in Yerevan. I expect that after finalization, we will come to the adoption of two very important complementary documents – the decision of the Collective Security Council on rendering assistance to the Republic of Armenia and the statement of the CSTO Council of Foreign Ministers in support of efforts to achieve peace in the South Caucasus region,” Zas said on Monday.
The Secretary General stated that the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council, held in late November in Yerevan, cannot be considered a failure.
“After the end of the session in Yerevan, I was surprised to read reports in some resources that the session was allegedly a failure, almost a collapse of some kind. Nothing of the kind. I categorically disagree with this. There was a normal working atmosphere, a whole list of very important decisions was by the heads of state. Therefore, it is inappropriate to talk about some any of failure,” he stressed.
According to Zas, the CSTO is not going to turn away from Armenia.
The CSTO Secretary General noted that in 2022, the heads of the member states of the organization met three times to discuss the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
As Zas noted, the CSTO proposals on sending an observation mission to Armenia remain in force, and this can be organized quite quickly.
On November 23, a CSTO summit was held in Yerevan, as a result of which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not sign the draft “Declaration of the CSTO CSC on joint measures to provide assistance to the Republic of Armenia”, as well as a decision on the actions of the CSTO during the escalation on September 13 on the border with Azerbaijan. Pashinyan explained this by the incompleteness of the declaration, the lack of a “clear political assessment of the situation” in it. At the same time, he called the negotiations held within the CSTO Council fair, positive and open.
During the press conference dedicated to the results of CSTO activities in 2022, the general secretary of the organization also referred to the mission of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“The mission performed by Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh is very important for the entire Caucasus region. It is difficult to overestimate it, the peacekeepers are solving a very important problem there. Of course, we note the difficult conditions under which these problems should be solved, and we note the aggravation of the situation that is currently happening there, including the blocking of the Lachin Corridor," said Zas.
As for the activities of peacekeepers, Zas believes that all parties should help them carry out their mission.
