Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday criticized his allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Moscow-led military alliance, for their failure to defend Yerevan from neighboring Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have battled for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in two wars, the last of which, in 2020, claimed more than 6,500 lives.
Clashes have taken place regularly since, such as in September, when 286 fighters were killed.
"So far, we have not managed to agree on a reaction of the CSTO to the Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia"
, lamented Nikol Pashinian, during a summit in Yerevan of this alliance military uniting several ex-Soviet republics.
"Harm"
He found it
"damning that Armenia's membership in the CSTO could not contain Azerbaijani aggression"
.
"This is causing enormous damage to the image of the CSTO, both in our country and abroad
," assured Nikol Pashinyan.
He spoke in the evening with Russian President Vladimir Putin, also present at the summit, to discuss in particular the problem of Nagorny-Karabakh.
For his part, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, assured that the CSTO was a
“necessary”
organization whose services remain
“in great demand”
to settle regional conflicts.
“It is very important that Armenia and Azerbaijan agree on a peace treaty.
This is our main task.
And we must all make the maximum effort for (...) that it is carried out
, he declared to the press at the end of the top of the CSTO.
The conflict between Baku and Yerevan is linked to territorial disputes, particularly around Nagorny-Karabakh, a mountainous region populated mainly by Armenians which seceded from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s with the help of Armenia.
A first war had then caused more than 30,000 deaths.
The fall 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan had claimed more than 6,500 lives on both sides and ended with an Armenian military rout and a Moscow-sponsored peace deal.
Sporadic clashes continued to break out, however, despite the presence of Russian soldiers, whether in Nagorny-Karabakh or on the recognized border between the two countries, as in September.
Read alsoThe letter from Sylvain Tesson to Emmanuel Macron: “Mr. President, Armenia is on the way to disappearing”
Armenia requested military aid from the CSTO and Moscow in September, in accordance with the agreement regulating the activities of the alliance.
But the CSTO reacted by dispatching its secretary general to the conflict zone and proposing to create a working group to analyze the situation.
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