Prime Minister clarifies: CSTO doubts regarding Armenia`s borders become  starting point for disagreements

ArmInfo. Before the well-known events of September 2022, Armenia expressed its concerns to CSTO colleagues about a potential attack by Azerbaijan. In response, Armenia  received assurances that it's border was a red line for the CSTO. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated during a press conference on July 16, in response to a  question about his recognition of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, including the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"When, already during the September events, we made officially and unofficially appeals to the CSTO, to our surprise we received a response that it was unclear whether this area belonged to Armenia or not. Then we had an objective question - that red line, about which we were given assurances, where does it lie?" the Prime Minister said, emphasizing that the issues with the Organization began precisely with this red line.

The first reaction to such a position, according to Pashinyan, was doubt as to whether our CSTO partners recognize our territorial integrity and if we ourselves recognize it?  "And then came the realization that we cannot acknowledge the territorial integrity of our country without also acknowledging the territorial integrity of our neighboring country. And, therefore, on October 6, 2022, I, as Prime Minister, recognized the territorial integrity of Armenia," the head of government noted. Meanwhile, he emphasized that he made his statement (on the recognition of Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan) after agreeing with the representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh, which, he believed was the right stance  in the political, legal and moral sense.

 Pashinyan also pointed out that when he came to power, Armenia was already deeply involved in all these processes, leaving no other options or opportunities to resolve the situation. " This was especially evident when the candidate for the post of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan made his famous statement in April 2018 that the negotiation process was at a standstill and did not inspire optimism. He stated that we should no longer hope that Azerbaijan would refuse to resolve the issue by military means," the Prime Minister noted.  Additionally, when asked another question about Armenia's membership in the CSTO, Pashinyan noted that it is more likely for our country to leave the Organization rather than "unfreeze" its membership.