CSTO Statement On Moscow Terror Attack Not Signed By Armenia
• Astghik Bedevian
RFE/RL Armenian Service
Russia – A woman lays flowers on the roadside in front of the burnt-out Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow, March 26, 2024.
The leadership of the Armenian parliament has refused to sign up to a statement by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) condemning last Friday’s terrorist attack on a concert hall outside Moscow.
“There was an offer by the CSTO to the Armenian side to join the statement. We refused because Armenia has frozen its membership in the CSTO,” a spokeswoman for parliament speaker Alen Simonian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Wednesday.
The official, Nelly Ghulian, noted that Simonian condemned the attack in a social media post and offered condolences to his Russian counterparts in connection with at least 143 deaths caused by it. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian did so in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Last year, Pashinian’s government not only shunned various-level CSTO meetings but also cancelled a CSTO exercise in Armenia, refused to name an Armenian deputy head of the organization and recalled the Armenian representative to its Moscow headquarters.
Pashinian said last month that this amounts to the “freezing” of Armenia’s membership in the alliance accused by Yerevan of not honoring its commitments to the South Caucasus country. He afterwards did not rule out the possibility of leaving the CSTO altogether.
