Pashinian claimed that unlike the European Union, the Russian-led military alliance has declined to recognize CSTO member Armenia’s current borders.
Russia and other CSTO member states proposed such a deployment during a summit in Yerevan last November. Armenia turned down the offer on the grounds that they refused to condemn Azerbaijan’s offensive military operations along the border.
Yerevan requested a new and larger monitoring mission by the EU instead. The EU announced the impending launch of the two-year mission on January 23.
“They [the EU] said that ‘this is what we regard Armenia’s map’ or rather we said that and they certified that,” Pashinian told the Armenian parliament. “They are coming to monitor that territory.”
By contrast, he said, the CSTO has still not clarified what it sees as Armenian territory. Hosting a CSTO monitoring mission in these circumstances would be “at least strange,” he said during his government’s question-and-answer session in the National Assembly.
“Because it would not be clear to them what they monitor,” Pashinian went on. “The issue arose when Azerbaijan occupied Armenian territory. If a particular mission doesn’t know what the territory of Armenia is, how is it going to determine whether or not Armenian territory is occupied?”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said late last month that the EU mission “can only bring geopolitical confrontation to the region.” It accused the EU of seeking to “push back Russia's mediation efforts at any cost.”
Pashinian indicated on Wednesday that the more than 100 European observers that are due to be deployed in Armenia later this month will also be monitoring Russian troops stationed in the South Caucasus country. He said Azerbaijan has told Western powers that its “aggressive actions” are a response to increased Russian military presence in Armenia.
“Our Western partners started rebuking us that ‘you are planning aggressive actions because there is a buildup of Russian and Armenian troops planning to attack Azerbaijan and the poor Azerbaijanis have to seize [Armenian] border heights to counter that threat.’ We said, ‘OK, come and monitor on the ground and see if that is true,’” added Pashinian.
Pashinian made similar claims in early January. He said that the close military ties with Russia may therefore be putting Armenia’s security and territorial integrity at greater risk. Moscow dismissed the claims as “absurd.”
Russian-Armenian relations have soured lately also because of Azerbaijan’s two-month blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh’s sole land link with Armenia. Pashinian has accused Russian peacekeepers of doing little to unblock the vital road.
Other Armenian officials have gone farther, alleging that Moscow is using the blockade to try to force Armenia to join the “union state” of Russia and Belarus. The Russian Foreign Ministry has strongly denied the allegations.