A meeting of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will be held in Yerevan today. There is no doubt that the Armenian authorities, which will host the meeting, will make unsuccessful attempts to use the CSTO against Azerbaijan this time as well.
In general, it is possible to say relations between the CSTO and member states Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia are tense and insincere. Official Yerevan has not seen the CSTO as a reliable partner and has always taken steps to put the organization in a difficult situation.
Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power on May 1, 2018, on the background of mass protests against Serzh Sargsyan's authority, started to pursue a pro-western policy over the period. The government, formed by him, mostly consisted of personnel, who got an education in the West and worked in NGOs and funds, financed from Europe and the US for many years. They, including Pashinyan, took part in anti-Russian actions until 2018 and held actions demanding the country's withdrawal from Russian dependence and the CSTO.
Pashinyan authority, pursuing pro-Western policy, attempted to get a dividend from countries such as the US, France, Canada, etc., to approach the European Union, tried to damage CSTO reputation, to get away from Russia.
Pashinyan’s first blow to the CSTO did not take too long. A criminal case was launched against CSTO Secretary-General Yuri Khachaturov in July of 2018 - a little after he came to power, Secretary-General was arrested. With willing of Yerevan, Yuri Khachaturov was dismissed from the post of CSTO Secretary-General on November 2, 2018.
The Detention and arrest of Khachaturov while implementing his duty was not the result of internal political processes in Armenia, but rather Pashinyan's political move aimed at discrediting CSTO and scoring points in front of Western countries.
The arrest of the person, coordinating the work of the organization without informing member states of the organization, as well as Moscow, was in fact a disrespect against the whole CSTO, mostly Kremlin. Because official Yerevan could recall Yuri Khachaturov from Secretariat and arrest but damaged Russian reputation by arresting him on duty immediately.
In parallel, Armenia was dealing with military espionage against Russia. Thus, the official Yerevan transferred military planning within the framework of CSTO, all technical characteristics of joint Air Defense Forces, battle plans of the Russian army, combat readiness and methodologies of conducting military operations to the West.
This process, which lasted for years, opened the way for the characteristics of Russia's offensive and defensive weapons, artillery systems, and Air Defense complexes to pass to the West, including NATO experts. Armenian officer cadets who graduated from Russian higher military schools every year play a big role in espionage.
More than 2599 Armenian servicemen received military education in Russia since 1992, the main part of the Armenian general officers graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia. They even transferred to the West all the educational materials and personal files of the Russian soldiers who studied with them and gave full information about the personnel of the Russian army and the military industry. It is not excluded that this information transmitted to Western circles played a role in Russia's defeat in Ukraine.
Of course, it is not a secret that Russian special service bodies gave information to Kremlin that the Armenian Government damaged Russia’s defense potential and international image. The Russian Government well understands Pashinyan’s hypocritical policy with other CSTO member countries and takes adequate measures for it. They understand that Nikol Pashinyan, who tries to put the military block contradict Azerbaijan, attempts to break up the organization from within. In terms of this, there is no trust in him within the organization. On the contrary, the CSTO leaders are in close friendly and cooperative relations with the Azerbaijani head of state Ilham Aliyev. Unlike Armenia, this cooperation is sincere not only at the military, political or economic level but also at the level of people. This approach showed itself in the extraordinary meeting of the CSTO Security Council on October 28. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko noted that member countries of the organization have high-level bilateral relations with Azerbaijan and severely criticized Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
"You demanded that we (CSTO) define our position. Do you not know our position? We would like the conflict between the neighboring states to be resolved peacefully."
The Belarusian leader criticized Armenia's attempts to confront Azerbaijan with CSTO and reminded once again that Azerbaijan is not an enemy of the organization.
Lukashenko's speech was, in fact, the consensus position of all CSTO leaders and, at the same time, meant the failure of Nikol Pashinyan's hypocritical diplomacy.
Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan have demonstrated that they do not intend to spoil relations with Azerbaijan due to Armenia's unfounded claims.
The statements of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, during his speech on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the New Azerbaijan Party, proved it.
"For example, the Collective Security Treaty Organization. We are not a member of this organization. Armenia is a member of it, and through this organization, it was intending to raise an unfounded claim against Azerbaijan. In fact, it wanted the countries that are members of this organization to confront Azerbaijan. This is a great provocation and a great crime. However, other members of this organization did not succumb to this provocation. Some disgraced Armenia so badly in their speeches that Armenia cannot recover to this day. So what does this mean? The number of our friends in this organization is higher than those in Armenia. Why? Because of our policy and because we are a reliable partner.”
"Why is the attitude towards Armenia negative? Because they lie everywhere, and there is no door left for them not to turn to solve their problems. All this is obvious, everyone sees it, and everyone knows it," the head of state stressed.
Despite the CSTO border mission being sent to the Azerbaijan-Armenia border on September 22, official Iravan once again showed disrespect towards Russia and the organization of which it is a member. Thus, Pashinyan's government brought the OSCE mission to the border with Azerbaijan on October 21-27, and since October 27, the European Union's 40-person observation mission for a 2-month period.
Indeed, the government of Pashinyan demonstrated disbelief in Russia’s activity through CSTO and attempted to deploy forces in the region from the outside.
As it is not enough, it started the “black PR” campaign against Russia and CSTO with the support of Nikol Pashinyan’s family newspaper “Aykakan Jamanak” and other mass media. The media claimed that CSTO is a useless body, it did not implement its commitments before Armenia, and blackmail statements of the officials, including Pashinyan on Yerevan leaving the organization, were circulated. At the same time, demands for the cancellation of the agreement on the operation of the 102nd military base in Gyumri until 2044 and its removal from the country were louder. All these Rusophob campaigns were implemented by the instruction of Pashinyan’s administration.
In local TV channels, Armenian political experts and the party heads criticized Russia’s current policy and accused the Kremlin of most problems of the country.
As another sample of Armenia’s fight against CSTO and Russia, yesterday, within the framework of the CSTO Security Council meeting, a protest held against Vladimir Putin’s visit can be said as an example. Hundreds of protesters holding the flags of the US, the European countries, the EU, and Ukraine, held protests at the center of the city, accompanied by police, with the slogan “Go away, CSTO”. “Russia is our enemy!”
All these show that Armenia is never honest to anybody, it ready to cross out a line in allied and cooperation relations. All that remains is for Russia and others to finally understand this…
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