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Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said Armenia had long ago halted its participation and activities in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and had effectively frozen its membership.
Operative Information Center-OMM reports that Mirzoyan made the remarks at a briefing in Yerevan with his Slovenian counterpart, responding to former CSTO Secretary-General Nikolay Bordyuzha’s call for Armenia to withdraw from the organization completely.
Mirzoyan stated Yerevan’s position firmly: “Armenia halted its participation in the CSTO long ago and froze its membership. We see no real possibility or prospect of returning to this organization or changing our current relationship with it.”
Former CSTO Secretary-General Nikolay Bordyuzha told RIA Novosti in an interview that, despite freezing its participation, Armenia remained a full member of the organization in legal terms. He noted that all decisions within the bloc are made by consensus and said Yerevan’s current position sharply conflicts with the organization’s overall activities and interests.
Armenia’s leadership formally announced in 2024 that it had frozen its activities in the CSTO and stopped paying membership contributions to the organization’s budget. However, because the military bloc’s charter does not provide a legal mechanism for unilaterally suspending membership, Yerevan remains officially a member alongside Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Political experts view Armenia’s steps as part of a policy of strengthening integration with Western countries and moving away from post-Soviet security mechanisms.
