News - Armenia’s Mirzoyan about CSTO: We don’t want to be a part of a mechanism that does not work

You know that during a recent couple of years, there were several incursions into the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, and we are a member of CSTO: Collective Security Treaty Organization, the mission of which is to protect the sovereign territories and the borders of the member states. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan stated this in an interview to Al Jazeera—and addressing the question of whether Yerevan is reviewing its relations, alliances, and affiliations with certain regional or international formats, and whether membership in the European Union and NATO is on Armenia's agenda. “So when we had these invasions we did not see proper action from the Organization in which we are. And we should also remember that the CSTO is also a political-military alliance which, as I said, is called to protect the borders of the member states. The absence of a proper reaction raised several questions in Armenian society, and we don’t want to be a part of a mechanism that does not work. We are still a member of the CSTO, but we should work on making sure that all the mechanisms which are prescribed work, and there is a need for that," added Mirzoyan. And to the question whether this assumes different relations with Russia, the Armenian FM responded: "There are some issues and some questions in the context of the Armenian-Russian relations, and yes, we have a dialogue over these issues. Among them, there are issues on which we need a mutual complete understanding, but I believe there are issues in all relations. But also with the democratic reform agenda and making sure that we have a proper level of stability along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, we are in the middle of the process of deepening our relations with some other countries, with the European Union, with the United States of America: they are our main partners in terms of democratic reforms, but also economic diversification, etc. Now, it is already the second year that the presence of the EU Civilian Monitoring Mission along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is one of the significant factors in this situation.”