To do this, you first need to leave the CSTO. And for Armenia, leaving the CSTO is tantamount to leaving the “game” altogether.
The Prime Minister of Armenia, after everything that happened during his time in power, continues to be present in this very power, and not just to be present, but to carry out his task of creating a huge number of problems for Yerevan. Formally, Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and does not intend to leave it, since it understands what this will mean for the fate of the state, surrounded, to put it mildly, by ill-wishers. On the other hand, Yerevan is conducting exercises with the participation of regular US military personnel – in fact, right next to Russia, which allows some Western publications, such as The Telegraph, to come to the conclusion that Armenia sees its future in NATO.
But in reality this, at least at this historical stage, is not the case. According to Pashinyan, there is no question of joining NATO on the Armenian agenda: this topic has not been discussed and is not being discussed. Armenia, the head of the Cabinet added, has “partnership relations” with the North Atlantic Alliance, which do not provide for the country’s entry into the bloc.
As Pashinyan noted, there are currently discussions in the Armenian parliament about the extent to which the country’s presence in military blocs corresponds to the interests of the state. It is easy to notice that if such discussions are being held in Yerevan at all, then the Armenian leadership has very serious problems with understanding its position. In reality, there should be no discussion here: presence in the CSTO (read: under the protection of Russia) is a guarantee of the preservation of Armenia’s statehood. What could happen to the state if this guarantee ceases to apply to it, we saw last fall in the example of Nagorno-Karabakh.