Armenia freezes membership in the CSTO. Why, and what does it mean?

 


On February 22nd the prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, announced that Armenia would freeze its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Russian-led military alliance.[1] The future of Armenian membership in the alliance is uncertain. The decision to freeze Armenian membership comes in the wake of increased Azerbaijani pressure, improved Armenia-NATO relations, and a significant deterioration of Armenian-Russian relations.

The Armenian threat of Azeri aggression has not ended with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict having ended in an Azerbaijani victory. Azerbaijan has not given up on the Zangezur corridor concept, which would link the Azeri Nakchivan exclave to the rest of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani prime minister Heydar Aliyev also often speaks of Armenian lands as “west Azerbaijan”, and that he hopes for a settlement where “west Azerbaijanis” can move home (which would then be into Armenia).[2] Pashinyan is keenly aware of the implicit threat in these statements, and he has brought up the Russian failure to safeguard against these threats as a reason for leaving the CSTO. The Azerbaijani foreign ministry has spoken out against Pashinyan’s comments about the Azeri threat, claiming that he is the one disrupting the peace process.[3]

Considering Armenia’s fears of a full-scale Azeri invasion now might not be the best time to leave the country’s only formal defensive alliance. For this reason Armenia is not just distancing itself from the CSTO, but also approaching NATO for a closer partnership. Being militarily allied to both Russia and the United States is a hard balance, and Armenia turning from Russia will most likely help a NATO-membership bid, which may be a better deterrent from Azerbaijani aggression. Armenia is already a close strategic partner with NATO, which makes a future membership easier to imagine.[4]

Armenia is distancing itself from Russia in more ways than only the CSTO membership. Armenia joining the International Criminal Court and thereby implicitly pledging to arrest Russian president Vladimir Putin should he arrive in Armenia is a clear sign of how times are changing in the old alliance.[5] This does not only have to do with a Russian failure to protect Armenia. Prime minister Pashinyan has stated that he personally believes the Russian government wishes to have him removed for not being pro-Russian enough, and that Russian propaganda is behind the crowds in Yerevan calling for his resignation.[6]

A possible Armenian pivot from alliance with Russia towards an alliance with the US has been discussed for some time, and the recent developments have not been surprising. A full and formal Armenian withdrawal from the CSTO is to be expected within the coming months. The withdrawal is not without strategic implications for Russia, despite Armenia’s modest size. As discussed in the blogpost about the CSTO, Armenia is the second largest contributor to the CSTO’s peacekeeping force, and their removal would make CSTO’s activities even more obviously dominated by Russia. Beyond this, the weight in symbolism of losing one of your five only allies during a war is impossible to quantify.  

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