This week's Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Yerevan marked the second dramatic moment this year for the unification of the six former Soviet republics in the most turbulent, most unpredictable year in its 30-year history.
At the start of the year, faced with an unprecedented crisis in Kazakhstan, which forced the leaders of the organization to make an urgent decision to send their contingent to the republic and thereby prevent a large regional fire from igniting, at the end of the year, the Collective Security Treaty Organization again found itself in a force majeure situation.
The anniversary CSTO summit took place in the context of a sharp deterioration in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was perhaps the most serious setback in the peace process in the South Caucasus two years after the end of the second Karabakh war.
Contrary to expectations, by the end of the year, Yerevan and Baku were not only unprepared to sign a peace treaty, but also began to balance on the brink of a new armed conflict.
His threat was not removed even after the recent meeting of the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in Sochi.
War of nerves and skirmishes in the conflict zone occur almost every day.
It would be fundamentally wrong to say that on the issue of the ongoing confrontation between Baku and Yerevan, the CSTO ignored this challenge, turned a blind eye to it, or took an ostrich position.
Over the past months and years, the CSTO has repeatedly called on both sides to resolve the conflict as soon as possible through political and diplomatic means, demonstrating its readiness to help the parties find a compromise.
However, the Armenian side stubbornly made it clear that this was not enough for her.
Yerevan's position boiled down to the fact that under the current circumstances, the CSTO cannot afford the former equidistance and should actively intervene in the conflict on the side of Armenia, thereby fulfilling its allied obligations, according to Nikol Pashinyan.
Friction on this issue, which by the end of the year forced the CSTO to enter a zone of turbulence, fully surfaced during the online summit of its leaders held on October 28, during which a frank, emotionally colored conversation between Nikol Pashinyan and Alexander Lukashenko took place.
“You demanded that we decide on our position.
Do you know our position?
We want the conflict between neighboring states to be resolved peacefully.
The second question: give me a roadmap for restoring the territorial integrity of Armenia!
What road map?!
I will answer you right away: sit down with Ilham Aliyev, if necessary, ask the President of Russia and make a decision!
If you don’t accept it today, it will be worse, you yourself understand this, we don’t need this conflict!”
Alexander Lukashenko said then.
“It is impossible to put the question like this: on the one hand, the CSTO, and on the other hand, Azerbaijan!
It is not right!"
he added.
However, Nikol Pashinyan was not convinced by this detailed explanation.
Literally on the eve of the CSTO summit, at a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, he made it clear that he was waiting for the support of not only the CSTO, but also the West in this matter.
Already on the opening day of the summit, the radical Armenian opposition tried to organize actions under anti-Russian slogans, which, however, did not become massive.
What is the result?
A complete understanding on this issue has not yet been achieved.
“The Prime Minister of Armenia, speaking at the very beginning in a narrow format, said that he was rather inclined to interpret the work of the CSTO on the situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan as a fiasco.
This is the right of the Armenian side to assess the situation in this way.
But, on the other hand, the demand for the CSTO in this situation is obvious,” said Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of Vladimir Putin, summing up the summit.
“Now we have to decide what to do next, so that the CSTO helps to resolve the situation, reduce tension, can play a pacifying role for both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and so that the Armenian side dispels all doubts,” he added.
Nikol Pashinyan himself, saying goodbye to Vladimir Putin and thanking him for coming to Yerevan, admitted that 15 out of 17 decisions were made, while two documents were sent for revision.
At the same time, he called the Russian-Armenian relations "very intense."
In turn, Vladimir Putin congratulated Nikol Pashinyan on the successful completion of the Armenian chairmanship in the CSTO.
“Armenia conducted this work at a very high level, actively.
Of course, never, probably, or very rarely, it is possible to agree on all issues, but on the whole, the work went very intensively and with benefit, ”the Russian president said.
Speaking about relations with Armenia, he pointed out that these relations "are certainly allied, have ancient, deep roots."
The CSTO summit in Yerevan, which took place against the background of the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict and the active involvement of NATO in it, supplying Kyiv with weapons and increasing its presence on the border with Russia and Belarus, could not be reduced to discussing an acute, but at the same time not the most important issue for members of the Treaty Organization on collective security.
Reminders that the escalation is happening every day were a new emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine and the scandalous decision of the European Parliament to recognize Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism”.
Alexander Lukashenko dwelled on these threats and challenges to the CSTO in his speech at the summit in Yerevan.
“Under the pretext of containing the allegedly aggressive behavior of Russia and its allies, there is a systematic buildup of the military presence of the States and other NATO countries at the western borders of the CSTO, that is, at our borders!
The West continues to transfer troops, weapons and military equipment to the eastern flank of NATO.
What is this if not the development of a potential theater of operations? .. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are trained on their training grounds according to NATO programs.
Kyiv is provided with Western weapons and military equipment.
What is this, if not direct involvement in the conflict?
And how to understand the statements of the NATO Secretary General, who says that the defeat of Ukraine will mean the defeat of the North Atlantic Alliance?”
- said the Belarusian leader.
Alexander Lukashenko called "strengthening the role and importance of the CSTO in the system of international relations, as well as the comprehensive compliance of the organization's activities with the context of regional and global security" as the main task.
“We are not going to leave the military-political arena.
The CSTO will exist, and no one will collapse anywhere.
But we need unity,” the Belarusian president summed up.
“They don’t really want to perceive us, especially our main rivals, the NATO members: no matter what we offer separately to NATO members, to the collective West, they distance themselves from us.
But the progress is very serious within the framework of the SCO, the CIS, ”he recalled, urging the CSTO allies to always see their star in the thick geopolitical fog and smoke of conflicts.
In other words, stubbornly go through friction to the stars.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.