Even in the event of being deprived of the right to vote in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Armenia will preserve the right to collective security, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

“I want to emphasize that even after the adoption of this decision [on Armenia’s deprivation of the right to vote in the CSTO], the Armenian partners will in fact preserve all the basic rights stipulated by the Collective Security Treaty, including the right to collective security itself,” Lavrov said at a press conference following a joint meeting with CSTO Secretary General Taalatbek Masadykov.