Nikol Pashinyan welcomed the visit of Mr. Zas to Armenia and said, ‘’We highly value our membership to the CSTO. The CSTO is one of the key elements of Armenia’s security system, which has a broad zone of responsibility. Unfortunately, tensions rise in quite many places. And it’s also for this reason that we are seriously preparing for our chairmanship over the Organization, which is related not only with the security challenges that have emerged in the recent period in the Republic of Armenia, but in the broader sense.
I think we have to overcome the challenges that have emerged in the responsibility zone of the CSTO with honor and solve all the problems. Of course, I want to focus on the following. The CSTO is first of all an organization which solves problems through political methods. Of course, it’s a military-political organization, but first of all it’s necessary to make all possible efforts to solve the situations, disagreements and challenges that emerge in the CSTO responsibility zone with political methods, which is also envisaged by the Charter and other normative documents. And I think that the Organization has vast opportunities to solve the existing problems through political methods. It’s necessary that the Organization and we demonstrate some resoluteness towards those issues. Of course, there are situations where very concrete mechanisms of actions are provided.
You know that, unfortunately, it’s already 2-3 months that a crisis situation exists on the Armenian borders, which poses concrete threat to the security of the Republic of Armenia. Unfortunately, the armed forces of Azerbaijan are positioned in our territory for already a few months. Of course, there have been many discussions over the CSTO response to that situation. I have to say that, in fact, for the first time we encounter such a situation at the CSTO and we have to examine the situation very attentively, so as we can raise the effectiveness of the CSTO mechanisms in the future. I think that your visit is very important also from this perspective. In this context, we take our chairmanship very seriously and we are preparing for it.
In this situation it’s important for us to find the political solution to the existing issues, and there are all the opportunities for that. It’s necessary to appropriately apply the mechanisms existing in the CSTO.
On the other hand, I have to say that the position of the Republic of Armenia on the regional agenda is constructive. The Republic of Armenia, undoubtedly, is committed to the implementation of the agreements provided by the statements of November 9 and January 11. It’s very important for us to create necessary conditions and reach concrete solutions in terms of opening the regional communications. It’s very important for us to really start border demarcation and delimitation with Azerbaijan. Of course, it’s necessary to create concrete conditions for that. I hope and I am confident that there are really opportunities to solve this crisis situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, at the Sotk-Khoznavar section, through political methods. I expect that we will be able to reach concrete solutions in the sidelines of the CSTO, particularly, in terms of the monitoring of the situation. This is the issue for which it’s necessary to make concrete decisions and work for concrete mechanisms’’. The PM added that they have many topics to discuss and expressed confidence that it will be possible to discuss all the issues and make concrete conclusions.
CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas said, ‘’Dear Nikol Vovaevich, I am sincerely happy to see you. Our last meeting took place in last year in February. Frankly speaking, I have the feeling that it was another life, so many developments took place during this 1.5 years: the pandemic started 1.5 weeks after that meeting, lockdown was declared, and afterwards the challenges that Armenia had to pass through – war, casualties. At that time we could not even imagine what was expecting us in the future, such harsh challenges, depression among the public. The latest development in the social-political life of Armenia was the parliamentary election, and taking the opportunity, I want to congratulate you on the occasion of the victory in the elections. Of course, we were monitoring with worry, there was a tough political struggle, but thank God everything went peacefully, there are no suspicions, which is very important. It’s important in terms of building normal life in the country and I am very glad that life begins to normalize, the mood of the people starts to change.
It seems that the right decision was made: to break the situation with the elections, to give people a chance to express themselves. I am glad that the...
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