Belarusian president lets Armenia know that CSTO not going to fight for them
Experts’ opinions on Caliber.Az

INTERVIEWS  07 November 2022 - 12:47

Deputy Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) Valery Semerikov has said that the events of the current year have shown that the CSTO should optimize the mechanism for responding to crisis situations.

A package of documents on this issue has been prepared and is being coordinated on behalf of the heads of the CSTO member states, Semerikov said at a meeting of secretaries of security councils of the CIS countries.

The deputy secretary general said that the current period of transformation of the world order has become the most serious test of strength for the CSTO member states.

He noted that there is still the danger of escalation and confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Of course, this is an interesting message. Is it possible to implement it in practice? Let's even assume that the corresponding CSTO specialists will be able to jointly develop some mechanisms for responding to crisis situations, determine a clear procedure for actions in case of their occurrence, and so on. So what? This is not all.

The issues of foreign policy guidelines and priorities of the CSTO member states come to the fore. Semerikov should not have forgotten this either.

Let’s suppose that Armenia may organize another armed provocation on the conditional border with Azerbaijan, and immediately decides in practice to test the new CSTO response mechanism.

Will combat units from the CSTO member states immediately arrive to help Yerevan and fight against Azerbaijan? Who will dare to do this - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus?

Azerbaijan has very friendly relations with all these countries. How can one evaluate these new intentions of the CSTO leadership, and their feasibility in practice?

The representatives of the expert communities of the CSTO member states gave Caliber.Az their answers.

Belarusian analyst Zmitser Mitskevich noted that the CSTO leadership can have any intentions, the only question is that it is already clear to everyone that nothing will be done in this direction, and all these are only words, no actions will be taken.

"During the recent summit of the CSTO member states, Pashinyan called for the need to somehow support Armenia, demanded help", he said.

Mitskevich reminded that the CSTO has a corresponding article stating that an attack on one of the member states will be considered an attack on the entire organisation, nothing has been done, and no one is going to do anything.

The analyst noted that the most important and the only thing that Pashinyan heard in response to his remarks was that President Lukashenko generally asked a very frank question - what do you want? This is very interesting.

"That is, President Lukashenko openly says that no one is going to support Armenia, and the fact that something is written about the CSTO on some pieces of paper, does not interest him at all. Everything becomes clear", Mitskevich said.

According to him, "It is difficult to even call this entire union an organization, because it consists of several bilateral agreements between each of these countries and the Russian Federation, and it was clear to everyone what they want from the CSTO".

"Each of these countries wanted to receive free weapons from Russia or free modernization of these weapons, of course, in exchange, for their geopolitical loyalty to Russia", Mitskevich noted. 

The analyst said that no one in the CSTO has ever wanted to support someone, to fight for someone, by saying "God forbid! So, there is no need to talk about it. All these statements of useless CSTO officials, who are not doing anything in the CSTO’s headquarters, cause only laughter".

"The whole world already understands that this is not an organization, but a circus. This is such a league to maintain the influence of the Russian Federation on the territories of these countries, and that's it. None of them are going to engage in any serious hostilities", the analyst believes.

He said that Kazakhstan can be cited here, the CSTO group came to help remove the protests. This is the only thing it is capable of and the only thing this organization was designed for.

"It doesn't make any sense anymore, especially in the current situation, none of them will fight for anyone. Actually, President Lukashenko clearly stressed this. As for Armenia, there is a war with Ukraine. This is the most important thing now", the analyst said, adding further, "I think that Armenia’s appeal to this useless organization looks funny, because many times everyone has already seen that this does not give any result at all". 

Russian political analyst, co-chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia political party, a senior expert of Moscow’s Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, Sergey Zhavoronkov, noted that the CSTO has a complex structure.

To make a decision, the issue must be raised by the chairman (who is changed on a rotational basis) and unanimously approved by the participating countries.

"Armenia submitted such an application in connection with the events on the border in 2021, but it was rejected and there is no reason to believe that the collective position will change. Another thing is that in fact the main force of the CSTO is Russia. Theoretically, it could single-handedly render assistance, especially we see that Russia is not concerned about international law", the analyst said.

"Russia is bogged down in the Ukrainian conflict, and it seems to me that until it ends, something new involving Russia is not expected to occur. Proceeding from the 'grain deal', the issue of the straits and the provision of the group in Syria, we saw that Türkiye has great leverage on Russia", Zhavoronkov said.

Kazakh political analyst, Aidar Amrebaev, called Semerikov's statement "a brave face on a bad situation".

"In fact, there is a huge distance between the adopted declarations and real policy. Proceeding from the recent practice, none of the mechanisms, developed in bureaucratic offices, work in the present conditions or work partially", the Kazakh political analyst said.

He concluded by saying, that "Important decisions and, in particular, actions are taken by the presidents through relevant agreements, taking into account strategic interests and tactical expediency".

Caliber.Az