We know that we can withdraw from the CSTO, we have known about it for a long time, Alen Simonyan, Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, stated during an interview on Russian television.

“We [i.e. Armenia] knew about it when the CSTO [i.e. the Collective Security Treaty Organization] did not respond in any way during the invasion of the territory of Armenia by the troops of a third country [i.e. Azerbaijan]; they [i.e. the CSTO] did not respond not only militarily, but also politically.

We also knew about it when the president of Belarus, [Alexander] Lukashenko, was announcing that they had prepared the military operations together with Azerbaijan.

We know all this, we knew that we could withdraw from the CSTO, but we decided to freeze [our membership in it].

At the initial phase, we gave time so that it would be possible to somehow smooth everything out.

But the time for a response has long run out, so now the prime minister of Armenia has announced what he announced,” said the head of the Security Council of Armenia.