CSTO freezes Armenia's right to vote and to appoint its representatives

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has frozen Armenia's right to vote and its right to appoint representatives to senior posts within the organization, according to what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced following the summit of the organization's leaders in Moscow.

Peskov explained, in a statement to the Russian website Life, that the decision came because of Armenia's failure over the course of years to fulfill its obligations within the organization, adding that the measure was approved in accordance with the organization's charter.

The decision does not constitute a formal exit by Armenia from the organization; Secretary General Talatbek Masadykov confirmed at the same summit that the question of terminating membership was not on the agenda. He noted that Armenia is able to restore its rights in full once it pays its overdue membership dues, pointing out that Yerevan has not contributed to the organization's budget for three years, and has not sent any staff to the secretariat or the joint headquarters.

Armenia had suspended its participation in CSTO activities since 2024. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had previously announced last August that his country does not intend to return to the organization during the next five years, expressing his satisfaction if the organization decided to remove it from membership.

The dispute is rooted in Yerevan's conviction that the CSTO failed to respond to Armenian security concerns in the aftermath of the Second Karabakh War in 2020, and then after Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023. Since then, Pashinyan's government has sought to deepen its relations with the European Union and the West.