Armenian Foreign Minister Refuses To Travel To CSTO Meeting

Instead, he met with EU representative Kaja Kallas

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan will not participate in the meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Foreign Ministers Council to be held in Kyrgyzstan on June 30, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ani Badalyan said. "There are no changes in the position of the Armenian side. Armenia will not take part in this meeting," she said. Instead, Mirzoyan will hold a press conference with European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaya Kallas, who arrived in Yerevan on June 29 for a two-day visit, The Moscow Times writes.

High-ranking Armenian officials and its prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, have not participated in CSTO activities since 2023, when the head of the government threatened to withdraw from the organization for lack of assistance during an escalating conflict with Azerbaijan. In February 2024, Pashinyan announced the freezing of the republic's membership in the CSTO. He stated that the Collective Security Treaty does not actually work for his country. Armenia stopped paying dues and participating in joint exercises. Pashinyan stated that the next logical step would be to leave the organization. In June 2025, the Foreign Ministry repeated this threat, demanding a clear political position from allies, including Russia, on Azerbaijan's actions three years ago.

Yerevan appealed to the CSTO in 2022-2023 because of the escalating conflict with Baku, but received no help. Moscow limited itself to expressing "concern" and "condolences." As a result, Azerbaijan introduced troops into Nagorno-Karabakh. The unrecognized republic, which has existed since the collapse of the USSR, dissolved on January 1, 2024, and more than 100,000 Armenians were forced to leave the region.

Pashinyan lamented that Armenia had joined an "alliance bubble" and stressed that the CSTO must designate the borders of the country's sovereign territory, which it is ready to defend, otherwise it will lose its only member in the Caucasus. He subsequently accused two of the bloc's members, including Belarus, of helping Azerbaijan during the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, called the CSTO a threat to national security and declared a "point of no return" in relations with the organization, which he has been a member of since its founding in May 1992.

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