YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–Armenia’s President Serzh Sarkisian has accused ex-Soviet states aligned in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) of failing to support Armenia and even aiding Azerbaijan in the Artsakh conflict, RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) reports.
Sarkisian launched the unusually scathing attack at a meeting with Nikolay Bordyuzha, the CSTO’s visiting secretary general, held late on Monday.
In a statement on the meeting, Sarkisian’s press office said, “The president emphasized that the position of several CSTO partners, which is displayed on various international platforms on issues of fundamental interest to their allies and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in particular, does not correspond the overall spirit of the negotiation process, contradicts statements and proposals by the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group as well as documents adopted within the CSTO framework.”
“Ilham Aliyev’s bellicose and Armenophobic statements do not receive an appropriate reaction from CSTO partners, which Serzh Sarkisian believes could have restrained the Azerbaijani leadership’s adventurist ambitions,” said the statement. “In the president’s words, as a result, Azerbaijan continues to escalate the situation and take provocative actions, blatantly violating its commitment to the conflict’s peaceful resolution.”
It was not clear whether Sarkisian referred only to Central Asian states affiliated with the defense pact or Russia as well.
The Armenian leader has already slammed the CSTO’s Turkic member states like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the past. In September 2013, for example, he publicly criticized their presidents for signing up to a declaration of Turkic states that called for a Karabakh settlement “within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders.”
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan as well as another CSTO member, Tajikistan, had previously backed even more pro-Azerbaijani statements by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The grouping of more than 50 predominantly Muslim states has repeatedly condemned Armenian “aggression” against Azerbaijan.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev underlined his country’s close ties with Azerbaijan in May when he publicly set a pro-Azerbaijani condition for Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
Sarkisian’s latest criticism of Armenia’s nominal Central Asian allies came just three days before an EEU summit in Minsk during which he is expected to sign an accession treaty with the Russian-led union, RFE/RL reports.
Incidentally, Kazakhstan’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Rapil Zhoshibayev visited Yerevan and met with Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian earlier on Monday. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said the two men agreed that Armenia’s accession to the EEU “will open up new opportunities” for deepening relations between their nations.
According to Sarkisian’s office, Bordyuzha’s latest trip to Yerevan is “connected,” among other things, with a recent upsurge in deadly truce violations in the conflict zone. Sarkisian was quoted as telling the CSTO chief that Azerbaijan’s provocations put at risk “the fragile security system formed in the CSTO’s zone of responsibility.”
Tension on the Armenian-Azerbaijani frontlines has eased substantially since Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted talks between Sarkisian and Aliyev on August 10.
Nikolay Bordyuzha noted that ahead of the preparation of the upcoming session of the CSTO Council, he is studying security issues pertaining to the CSTO, including the recent tensions in the Artsakh conflict zone. Bordyuzha said it is necessary to report and to discuss all those issues, which can seriously affect the security of the CSTO member states, at the upcoming session of the CSTO Council.
After the next war, I’m sure the president of Kazakhstan will welcome the 9 million azeris washing up on his shores with open arms. There is plenty of living space for azeri turks in that turkic land, their original homeland.
Armenia’s foreign policy is getting better on daily bases!
Muslims will allways stick together, Christians will allways stick to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$