Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan attended the events hosted by Belarus’s Alyaksandr Lukashenka, with Armenia’s flag also flying at the Minsk airport and at the venue of the gathering, the Independence Palace, even though neither Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, nor other Armenian officials have participated in the workings of the summit that was preceded by meetings of defense and foreign ministers and security council secretaries of member states on Wednesday.
Lukashenka said Armenia’s absence from the summit was discussed by the other leaders during their meeting held behind closed doors.
“We will not hide the fact that we also discussed the situation in the Caucasus and certain dissatisfaction of one of the CSTO members. We have come to a joint conclusion that there have always been problems, there are and there will be problems. But if we are to solve these problems, we should do it at the negotiation table and not through unreasonable demarches,” the Belarusian leader said, implying Pashinian’s refusal to attend the summit.
In an apparent jibe at the Armenian leader Lukashenka said that “only fly-by-night politicians” can create a situation of conflict “by making a gift to those who are not interested in strengthening the security of the CSTO member states.”
“This is irresponsible and short-sighted,” he said, as quoted by local media.
At the same time, the Belarusian leader expressed a hope to see “Armenian friends” at upcoming economic events in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Armenia drew criticism from Russia earlier this month after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced his decision not to attend the CSTO summit.
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, chided Armenia for what she described as veiled efforts by Yerevan to change its foreign-policy vector in favor of the West. She said Yerevan’s decision not to attend CSTO meetings was not in the “long-term interests of the Armenian people.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also lamented Armenia’s decision, but said that Moscow expects Armenia to continue its work within the framework of the CSTO.
CSTO Secretary-General Imangali Tasmagambetov said earlier this week that official Yerevan had asked to remove the issue of providing military assistance to Armenia from the summit agenda.
Armenia had appealed to the CSTO for military assistance in September 2022 following two-day deadly border clashes with Azerbaijan that Yerevan said stemmed from Baku’s aggression against sovereign Armenian territory.
The Russia-led bloc stopped short of calling Azerbaijan the aggressor and effectively refused to back Armenia militarily, while agreeing to consider only sending an observation mission to the South Caucasus country.
At the CSTO summit held in Yerevan last November Armenia declined such a mission, saying that before it could be carried out the CSTO needed to give a clear political assessment of what Yerevan had described as Azerbaijan’s aggression and occupation of sovereign Armenian territory.
Explaining his decision to skip the Minsk summit, the Armenian prime minister told the parliament in Yerevan earlier this month that the “fundamental problem” with the CSTO was that this organization had refused “to de-jure fixate its area of responsibility in Armenia.”
Earlier, the Armenian leader and other Armenian officials had said that the Russia-led defense alliance’s failure to respond to the security challenges facing Armenia meant that “it is the CSTO that is quitting Armenia and not Armenia that is quitting the CSTO.”
Talking to reporters in Yerevan on Thursday, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safarian said, however, that Armenia was not considering the possibility of quitting Russia-led alliances, including the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union, at the moment.
He also said that Armenia had no intention to raise the issue of the withdrawal of Russia’s military base from Armenia.
“There are no such topics on our agenda at the moment,” Safarian said.