Armenia’s leader snubs meeting of Russia-dominated security grouping over a rift with the Kremlin

The Associated Press ^ | November 23, 2023 | Yuras Karmanau

[Timber Rattler]

A Russian-dominated security grouping held a summit in Belarus on Thursday with the absence of one of its members, Armenia, which has been irked by what it sees as a lack of support over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Speaking at the meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed what he called the group’s role in securing peace and stability in the region.

But in a sign of the widening rift between Russia and Armenia, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan snubbed the summit in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, citing his government’s dissatisfaction with the organization. Pashinyan and his officials have emphasized that Armenia doesn’t plan to opt out of the grouping altogether.

Armenia has previously canceled joint drills and ignored ministerial meetings of the CSTO, which includes Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Armenian authorities have accused Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after a 2020 war of failing to stop September’s onslaught by Azerbaijan, which reclaimed control of the Armenian-populated region in a 24-hour blitz following two decades of separatist rule.

(snip)

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov voiced regret about Pashinyan snubbing Thursday’s summit, saying that Moscow hopes that “Armenia isn’t changing its foreign policy vector and it remains our ally and strategic partner.”

But the summit’s host, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, was more outspoken in his criticism of Armenia, saying without naming Pashinyan that “some of our partners took steps and made statements that were provocative.”

“If you have complaints, you must voice them in an eye-to-eye conversation instead of dumping stuff to the media,” he said, adding that it was “irresponsible and short-sighted” to create a “conflict situation” in the group to the benefit of the hostile West.

[Timber Rattler]

Christian Armenia has discovered that Muscovite commitments to defend it against Muslim Azerbaijan (and by extension Turkey) were worthless.