Russia is piling the pressure on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, daring him to take Armenia out of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Responding to Pashinyan’s latest comments about the potential full withdrawal of Armenia from the CSTO, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated that Yerevan is “free to end its membership” in the security organization.
“We still do not question the sovereign right of our Armenian partners to independently determine their foreign policy course, including in the context of the further work of the organization,” Zakharova said at an early May briefing.
Since its decisive defeat in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinyan’s government has distanced Armenia from Russia and taken steps to enhance ties with the United States and European Union. Many Armenians feel that Russia failed to fulfill its security commitments to Armenia during the last phase of the conflict. As part of its realignment, Yerevan has already frozen its membership in the CSTO, which is the Kremlin’s answer to NATO. Russian peacekeepers also left the region in early 2024, with Armenian officials saying that the troops were no longer welcome in Armenia. Additionally, Armenia kicked Russian border guards out of the Yerevan airport.
Since Azerbaijan forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenian residents out of Karabakh last September, Armenia has had little negotiating leverage in trying to secure a lasting peace deal with Baku. One bit of perceived leverage in the Armenian government’s eyes has been the threat of a full CSTO withdrawal. But Moscow is evidently ready to see if Pashinyan is bluffing.
The diplomatic poker game is part of Pashinyan’s efforts to secure Armenia’s existing borders. He wants CSTO recognition of the existing frontier, hoping that such recognition would forestall any possible future effort by Azerbaijan to seize Armenian territory.
In a speech in March, Pashinyan said that Armenians are asking why the country is still a member of the CSTO, and he “does not have an answer.” Pashinyan went on to say that the country will leave the organization if the CSTO and its leadership “does not outline how they see the borders of the country’s sovereign territory.”
“We are now asking, expecting, demanding that our esteemed CSTO partners answer the question of what is the CSTO’s zone of responsibility in Armenia.” If the Treaty fails to do so, Armenia will leave it. “When? I can’t say”, Pashinyan stated.
Russia’s signal that it will not endorse CSTO recognition of the Armenian frontier at this time creates another challenge for Pashinyan, whose government is also contending with a rising domestic discontent, including a protest march mounted by opponents of recent territorial concessions made by the government.
