Armenian parliament speaker to also skip CSTO meeting
The speaker of Armenia’s National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, says he will skip a meeting of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in December.
Earlier on Tuesday, it became known that Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Defense Minister Suren Papikyan would not attend the meetings of their counterparts from CSTO member states scheduled for November 22.
"There is an event scheduled for December, I won’t attend it either,” Simonyan told reporters in the parliament when asked to comment on the ministers' refusal to attend the CSTO meetings.
The speaker reiterated that Armenia had no plans to withdraw from the security bloc, but deemed his participation in the CSTO event “inappropriate”.
"What should I do there in a situation when the CSTO, in fact, has totally failed to fulfil its obligations?” he said.
Simonyan said he had notified the CSTO of his decision. “There has been no response so far. I think there won’t be any, because I am sure they also understand the reasons for my non-participation," he added.
“Armenia is not going to leave the CSTO, but we have concerns that it is the CSTO that is leaving Armenia. Their actions and statements confirm that this organization really has a problem," the speaker stated.