For Armenia membership to CSTO is Armenia-Russia relations: Pavel Felgenhauer

“CSTO Yerevan session was held in a closed format,” Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer told 168.am, reflecting to the results of CSTO session, launched in Armenia.

Russian media outlets qualified the session, held in Yerevan as “failed,” as expectations of the member countries weren’t justified. In particular, it refers to bypassing Syrian crisis in the final statement. There are complaints that the name of CSTO Secretary General wasn’t stated, that issue was simply eliminated from the agenda, which was strange, as appointment of the Secretary General has been discussed long ago.

By the way, the new Secretary should have been from Armenia, and pursuant some information, CSTO member countries can’t come to an agreement on appointing a Secretary General, thus discussion of the issue was postponed until the next meeting, which will be held by the end of this year in St. Petersburg.

According to the statement issued by the CSTO, the latter adopted a final statement, which mirrors approaches of CSTO member countries regarding international actual issues. There is refection to NK conflict as well.

Felgenhauer stated that CSTO summit wasn’t marked by any curious event. Moreover, in his words important event was appointment of CSTO Secretary General, and the issue was eliminated from the agenda, supposedly, due to serious discrepancies.

According to him, maybe one of the reasons of this session being uninteresting was its closed format out of unclear reasons. Felgenhauer considers that it’s not excluded that it was held in that format, as there were much discrepancies around Syrian formulations and candidacy of the new Secretary General. However, in his words, it was noteworthy, that the program, adopted in Yerevan, anticipates long-term activities and more perspective cooperation between CSTO member countries.

“For Armenia membership to CSTO are Armenia-Russia relations, as CSTO, as a united organization, will never appear against Armenia, and moreover, against NK issues, as NK is not a part of that organization, and some member countries are in close ties with Azerbaijan. All these are rather obvious circumstances. Neither Armenia will interfere with Middle Asian developments, nor the latter in Karabakh issue.

Although Armenian public discontent is clear, it’s partially clear for Russia as well, which provided Armenia “Iskander” missile systems to restore military balance between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Pavel Felgenhauer said.

He thinks that basically what CSTO could do, is doing Russia, as Armenia’s security guarantor and partner. “However, Russia also pursues its own interests, and that interest is the South Caucasus, not only as a separate country. This is a crucial point to understand the policy pursued by Russia,” Felgenhauer stressed.

By Araks Martirosyan