YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan received the Foreign Ministers of the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas, the PM’s Office said.

Addressing the meeting participants, the Armenian PM said: “Dear friends, I welcome you all in our country, in our capital. I welcome the holding of the session of the Council of CSTO Foreign Ministers in our country.

This year we have a double jubilee as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Collective Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. It’s a great pleasure to see that on this jubilee year the dynamics, we have had traditionally, is being restored again after the coronavirus pandemic. And as we have stated it repeatedly, I think that this jubilee is a very good occasion to analyze the past path, highlight our achievements and success and talk about the shortcomings noticed during the existence and activity of our organization.

You know that CSTO is one of the key factors in ensuring the security of our countries, and I should regretfully state that the situation under the responsibility zone of our organization is not so stable. In this context, I believe, we should closely cooperate, exchange information and situation assessment in order to use the mechanisms for preventing and managing the crisis situations at the necessary moment.

I also want to note that we are very glad to host different CSTO events with this intensity. Recently we have hosted the session of the Council of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly in Yerevan, and now we are hosting this important event. We are waiting for the Secretaries of the Security Councils of the CSTO states on June 17. These are really very good occasions to talk about and discuss the agenda that our organization has.

I once again want to welcome you and hope that you are having a productive session and time in our republic”.

At the meeting PM Pashinyan also touched upon the current situation in the region, speaking about the activity of the Armenia-Azerbaijan delimitation and border security commission, the opening of regional communications and the return of Armenian prisoners of war, hostages and other civilians still held in Azerbaijan. In this context Pashinyan highlighted the international community’s support.

The PM said Armenia is interested in the unblocking of regional communications, and all roads, to be opened, must operate under the sovereignty of the country through which they pass. He said there couldn’t be any “corridor” logic, and this is a common perception. In the context of the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the Armenian PM considered the issue of the status of Nagorno Karabakh vital and stated that the conflict must be settled peacefully, within the frames of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship.

Pashinyan said that the issue of the incursion of the Azerbaijani troops into Armenia’s sovereign territory since May 2021 still remains open, over which Armenia applied to the CSTO. In this context views were exchanged on improving the CSTO monitoring and rapid response mechanisms, which will raise the efficiency of the activity of the organization and the servicing of the security challenges of the member states.