Pashinyan: CSTO mechanisms should have worked in 2022
ArmInfo.Armenia recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, but we did so only after the Russian Federation's top leadership publicly stated this twice, and you remember, we've spoken about this repeatedly. We've never hidden our problems with the CSTO either, because we had a specific situation in 2022, and in my opinion, the CSTO mechanisms should have worked, but they didn't. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed this viewpoint at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
This, according to Pashinyan, of course, led to the current situation in our relations with the CSTO. "We are not currently participating in the CSTO's work for a simple reason: we are still unable to explain to our people, our citizens, why the CSTO has not responded and has not responded despite the obligations it has under the Collective Security Treaty."
Regarding domestic political processes, Pashinyan emphasized that Armenia is a democratic country, and "we essentially always have political processes, and this has become a normal thing for us. And we actually have elections twice a year, municipal elections, and they are also highly politicized, because based on the results of our political reforms, people vote for or against political parties. I mean, many of our citizens- not very many, but there are citizens-who think there is too much democracy in Armenia, but this is a matter of principle for us. Our social media, for example, is 100% free, there are no restrictions whatsoever, and many citizens think that this is too much." In the general context, frankly speaking, we don't have any remote participants in the political process. I'd like to point out that, for example, we have parliamentary elections coming up-elections for members of parliament, and based on these elections, and this is de facto, a prime ministerial election. I'd like to point out that only citizens who hold Armenian passports can participate in these elections," the prime minister said.
He clarified that, according to the Armenian constitution, people with Russian passports cannot run for parliament or prime minister, "so there are no restrictions here." "And I'm 100 percent certain that, you know, our relations with the Russian Federation and our personal relations have been through many trials in recent years. I am very pleased and would like to once again express my gratitude for the trusting atmosphere that you, first and foremost, created. If you hadn't wanted us to have such an open, trusting relationship, I think I obviously wouldn't have been able to do this," Pashinyan said.
The Armenian Prime Minister thanked the Russian President and expressed confidence that, following the upcoming elections, democracy and people's power in Armenia will be further strengthened, and that relations between Armenia and Russia will also continue to develop dynamically.