During the CSTO summit in Yerevan, the mandate of the CSTO mission on the border of Armenia with Azerbaijan was agreed upon. Everything was endorsed, but in the morning the Armenian colleagues decided to postpone this topic, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today, September 10, at a press conference.

“At the ministerial level (it was in the year 2021), we coordinated the CSTO mission mandate on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Everything was endorsed, but in the morning our Armenian colleagues decided to postpone this topic,” Lavrov noted.

He also commented on the journalists’ question that Armenia threatened to leave the CSTO.

“As for the fact that they are threatening to leave the CSTO, there are many politicians there who allow themselves quite arrogant statements towards Russia. 

“It didn’t start yesterday. We remember that when Mr. Pashinyan was still a politician out of power and raising up the Armenian people, one of his slogans was then proclaiming withdrawal from the CSTO and even from the Eurasian Economic Union. Many attributed this simply to the election campaign, the struggle for votes. Subsequently, Mr. Pashinyan did not express any such thoughts, including during the CSTO summit in Yerevan,” he noted.

Sergei Lavrov also spoke about Armenia’s recent refusal to participate in CSTO exercises.

“The Armenian-American exercises look all the more strange because for two years now Armenia has been refusing to take part in the CSTO exercises, explaining that if the CSTO had condemned Azerbaijan, then Armenia would have started working in the CSTO.
And when we ask why you communicate with the Americans and Europeans who do not condemn Azerbaijan, they say, “Well, they are not our allies, so you are the ones who should condemn.” This is quite a strange, simple logic. But I hope that all the alliance commitments that exist between us, and we value them, will still take effect and prevail in Armenia's foreign policy,” the Russian FM said.