Benjamin Matbusian: Pashinyan celebrated the freezing of CSTO membership in Turkey.
(After the CSTO, Armenia's membership in the EAEU will also be frozen).
Armenia has been denied the right to vote in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), as well as the opportunity to appoint its representatives to responsible positions in the organization's structure, said the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov. Limiting voting rights and blocking the ability to appoint Armenian representatives to key positions is a logical result of many years of political sabotage of commitments, non-payment of debts, ignoring the organization's work and discrediting it. However, what is striking about this story is not so much the technical procedures as the demonstrative demonstration of the priorities of Armenia's current leadership.
It is difficult to hide the symbolism of what is happening. On the day when the country lost its voice in a central military-political alliance that guaranteed its security, Nikol Pashinyan chose to go to Turkey.
The photographs of the Prime Minister of Armenia, sitting comfortably with Armoudi and shaking hands with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became a vivid illustration of where the vector of Armenian foreign policy is headed. Against the backdrop of a demonstrative distancing from previous partners, this visit looks like a demonstrative act of breaking past ties and fixing new guidelines.
In practice, the freezing of Armenia's status in the CSTO is only the first step in a chain of geopolitical transformations. The next step will inevitably be a similar scenario in relations with the Eurasian Economic Union. The process of European integration, launched by the Pashinian government in 2025 with the adoption of the relevant law, comes in direct conflict with the basic norms of the EAEU. It is impossible to simultaneously be in two incompatible customs and legal spaces, and the Eurosian partners have already made it clear that they do not intend to protect the interests of a country that destroys the economic contours of the union.