Moscow raised the issue of depriving Armenia of its voting rights in the CSTO

The Collective Security Treaty Organization plans to consider sanctions against Armenia due to its debt to the organization’s budget, which has been outstanding for more than two years. 

Following a meeting of the CSTO Council of Foreign Ministers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the participants agreed to invoke the relevant article of the charter to resolve this situation. 

According to Lavrov, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan explained the lack of funding by stating that the republic simply does not participate in the organization’s activities.

According to Article 20 of the CSTO Charter, a state that has failed to pay its dues for more than two years may be stripped of its voting rights in the organization and prohibited from nominating its citizens for quota-based positions. In the event of continued failure to comply with the charter’s requirements, the same article provides for the possibility of the country’s complete expulsion from the military-political bloc.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced the suspension of the country’s participation in the CSTO in February 2024, after which the republic’s foreign ministry officially ceased funding the organization. Yerevan made this decision because the organization did not provide Armenia with assistance during the armed conflict with Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan publicly referred to this military bloc as a “bubble alliance” and claimed that some of its members had directly planned the war in collaboration with Baku.

Source: The Moscow Times.