“We will consider the documents adopted as a result of the sessions of the CSTO statutory bodies… and, taking into account the procedures existing within the CSTO framework, the issue of Armenia’s accession to them,” Ani Badalian told the news program of Armenia’s Public Television late on Thursday.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other Armenian officials refused to go to Minsk to participate in the November 22-23 sessions hosted by Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his government and attended by leaders and representatives of four other former Soviet countries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to officials in Yerevan, Armenia’s absence from the summit was due to the CSTO’s “failure to respond to the security challenges” facing the South Caucasus nation.
Armenia had appealed to the CSTO for military assistance in September 2022 following two-day deadly border clashes with Azerbaijan that Yerevan said stemmed from Baku’s aggression against sovereign Armenian territory.
The Russia-led bloc stopped short of calling Azerbaijan the aggressor and effectively refused to back Armenia militarily, while agreeing to consider only sending an observation mission to the South Caucasus country.
Armenia later declined such a mission, saying that before it could be carried out the CSTO needed to give a clear political assessment of what Yerevan had described as Azerbaijan’s aggression and occupation of sovereign Armenian territory.
This week’s summit of the Russia-led defense bloc discussed “urgent problems of international and regional security” and made a number of decisions, including the approval of a new provision on the order of response of the CSTO to crisis situations and on the order of adoption and implementation of collective decisions on the use of forces.
The summit also approved the appointment of Russian Colonel General Andrei Serdyukov to the post of the head of the Joint Staff of the CSTO and a regulation on the joint press center of the CSTO.
Belarusian Foreign Minister Syarhey Aleynyk acknowledged before the leaders of Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan gathered for the summit that Armenia’s absence meant the lack of a quorum, but he told journalists that all the decisions approved would be “absolutely legitimate.”
Aleynyk said he had discussed “issues and mechanisms for approving decisions” with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan in a phone call. The Belarusian minister said that according to the CSTO rules, all decisions are made in consultation with all countries.
“We agreed that after the summit, the secretary-general of the CSTO will visit Yerevan. And, of course, we will pass all the decisions that were finalized here as part of the conciliation commission to our Armenian partners. And we will count on them to join us,” Aleynyk said.