It is necessary to stay in the CSTO, but not to pin special hopes on it. The second President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, stated this during his press conference Thursday.

According to him, the CSTO topic was the most frequently discussed in January.

"Is there a CSTO or not? Is it dead or not? And why did the CSTO not intervene when there was an attack on Armenia?" Kocharyan asked.

Also, he recalled the history of the creation of this organization.

"We [i.e., Armenia] have a border with four countries. I do not think that any reasonable person thinks that we have a threat from Georgia or Iran. Azerbaijan and Turkey remain. It is obvious that this is a serious threat to the Republic of Armenia.

And there is another fact that all the [other] CSTO countries—except Russia—have much warmer relations, much more extensive relations with both Turkey and Azerbaijan—in all spheres. (…).

Moreover, the CSTO Central Asian countries, together with Turkey and Azerbaijan, are part of another—Turkic—organization. And at the level of personal contacts, the leaders of those countries are much closer to the president of Azerbaijan.

Therefore, to think that the CSTO could have responded in any way to that attack on us would be naïve; it is simply ruled out. The point is not that the CSTO is a ‘dead’ organization, it does not work. It works very well where everyone's interests coincide, and it worked in the case of Kazakhstan. This is a fact, and we just have to take this fact into account.

To stay in the CSTO? Or not to stay? Of course, to stay. First, there is no other organization that can replace the CSTO. And secondly, there are many agreements within the framework of that organization, which regulate military-technical cooperation with Russia. I repeat: to stay, collaborate, but realize that from the security point of view, there can be nothing but announcements here," Kocharyan added.