CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov told Izvestiya that Armenia has limited its participation in the CSTO activities, but the main mechanisms of interaction keep operating and the activities on the organization’s agenda continue. “All obligations that the CSTO has toward Armenia are met in accordance with the organization’s statutory goals and principles,” Tasmagambetov said. The official added that the Western policy toward the Eurasian integration organizations affects both the organization and partially its allies. “Here it is important to note that the member states adhere to a multi-vector policy in interaction with external players, which is their sovereign right. Thus, Yerevan’s choice whether to remain in the CSTO or to withdraw from the organization will also be the sovereign decision of this independent state. How the current leadership of Armenia assesses the national security threats and risks facing the country is a different matter,” the official said.
According to him, the Secretariat analysts believe that the balance of power in the South Caucasus may change if Armenia withdraws from the CSTO, but in this case, those regional security factors will be brought into play, the impact of which is now quite difficult to predict or judge. “When discussing the possibility of a confrontation between Armenia and the CSTO, which, I hope, is nothing more than hypothetical, the resource base and real opportunities of the parties should be taken into account. Thus, the matter is not one of the extremely urgent issues at the moment and requires examination. At the same time, we respect the foreign policy decisions of the CSTO member states, which interact with NATO, having a status of sovereign and independent states,” Tasmagambetov noted.
