Armenian MP rules out any preparations for country’s withdrawal from CSTO

Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Armenia on Defence and Security Issues Armen Khachatryan said that there are no plans for Armenia to leave the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)

“There are quite a lot of discussions about ensuring security and Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO,” Khachatryan said during an interview on the Armenian channel Factor TV, Caliber.Az reports.

“Of course, there are quite a lot of discussions about ensuring security and Armenia’s exit from the CSTO. In general, I will say that what is discussed among the people, naturally the same thing is discussed in parliament. There are discussions, but leaving the CSTO is not a matter of one day, and it’s not that one day you will stand up and say that I left, and it will be considered that you left. There are many agreements related to the CSTO, there are many interstate legal acts, all of this needs to be discussed and analyzed.

Besides this, we do not think that leaving the CSTO at the moment will bring us any benefit. We are guided by national and state interests. We must think about everything calmly. And I’ll tell you that work done at the right time is already half the success, and vice versa. There are no such plans in the near future, there are discussions, but there are no such serious discussions that represent either projects or work on preparing projects,” said Khachatryan.