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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a number of false statements in an interview with the Russian Izvestia newspaper on March 28.
In particular, he claimed that in 2021, due to tensions with Azerbaijan, the CSTO had expressed willingness to “send a peacekeeping mission to Armenia”.
“The mandate of the mission had been fully agreed upon at the ministerial meeting held in Yerevan in the fall of 2021. And when the presidents and prime ministers met, Mr. Pashinyan said that there was no consensus. A few days later, he called a similar peacekeeping mission of the European Union to Armenia,” Lavrov said.
CSTO did not offer Armenia to send either observers or peacekeepers in 2021: Zas and evidence vs. Lavrov
In May 2021, Azerbaijan invaded Armenia in several sections of the eastern border of the country. Yerevan turned to the CSTO for the first time with a request to immediately activate the mechanism of emergency consultations with the purpose of coordinating the positions of CSTO-member States and taking measures to counter the emerging threats within the framework of the implementation of the provisions of Article 2 of the Collective Security Treaty of May 15, 1992.
However, the appeal from official Yerevan remained unanswered, and only weeks later, then CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas called the Azerbaijani invasion a “border incident“, noting that “no decision has been made to create a CSTO observation group“.
Moreover, the organization did not respond to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s proposal to deploy an observation mission on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, a proposal the latter came up with at the session of the Government of Armenia in July of the same year.
In fact, the CSTO did not respond to the proposal of the Armenian side to send observers in 2021, and this fact is confirmed by the then General Secretary of the organization. Moreover, Lavrov’s claim about the readiness to send a peacekeeping mission from the CSTO is also false.
When was the EU mission deployed in Armenia?
In September 2022, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale invasion of the sovereign territory of Armenia, capturing new territories. Armenia once again appealed to the CSTO, this time within the framework of Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty, but this appeal also remained unanswered. The CSTO did not make a decision to send troops to Armenia.
Weeks after the aggression unleashed by Baku, the first EU civilian mission was deployed in Armenia. The decision had been made during the quadrilateral meeting held in Prague on October 6, 2022.
Only after this decision did Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov announce on October 12, 2022 that the CSTO was ready to send observers to Armenia, and Armenia should convene an extraordinary session of the CSTO Council.
On October 20, 2022, 40 European civilian observers were deployed in Armenia for a period of two months, ending their activity on December 19.
Despite the deployment of observers, in November of the same year, a meeting of CSTO leaders was held in Yerevan, during which RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not sign the CSTO assistance document, stating that it did not give a political assessment to the Azerbaijani aggression and did not acknowledge the occupation of sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia.
The second EU mission was deployed in February 2023 for a period of 2 years.
In fact, Lavrov also lies regarding the dates of deployment of EU observers, claiming that the CSTO was the first to offer deployment of a mission in Armenia.
Baku’s permission is not required for the deployment of EU observers
Lavrov also claimed that the EU promised Azerbaijan to deploy observers on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for only two months.
“Two months later, disregarding Azerbaijan’s position, the EU expanded the mission,” Lavrov said.
Meanwhile, the EU has not publicly announced about any such promise or agreement. Moreover, the mission has no obligation to coordinate its activities with Baku through any procedure, as it was deployed exclusively on the Armenian side of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Therefore, Lavrov’s words that the EU deployed its observers in the Republic of Armenia without agreeing it with Baku are manipulative.
Nane Manasyan
