Yerevan unhappy with CSTO, seeks security guarantees in New Delhi, Tehran and West Revelations of Armenia's Security Council Secretary
Armenia is not trying to change the vector of its foreign policy at all, it only seeks security guarantees, Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of the National Security Council, stated in an interview with Civilnet.
According to him, after the 2018 revolution, Armenia announced that it would not make changes to its foreign policy.
Grigoryan himself, in his role as Secretary of the Security Council, did not visit any Western capitals or meet with any of his colleagues until December 2021, Caliber.Az reports citing his words quoted by Armenian media.
Instead, he travelled to Moscow, Astana, and Bishkek.
"After the 2020 war, Armenia's security sphere was in a very vulnerable position, but even then we talked to Moscow and reached agreements that, for example, Armenia's border is a red line, Armenia is ready for close cooperation, etc," Grigoryan said.
He said Armenia faced security problems in 2021 after several clashes.
"We faced this problem both in May and in November, so we need to think about our security. Apart from Western capitals, I have also visited Iran and India, and we have tried to solve our security problems.
We asked for help from the CSTO in May, in November, and so on, but we never got any help and started looking for alternatives. And when we are accused of changing our foreign policy, I cannot but say: think about it, it was you we initially asked for help, we asked to solve the problem in May, in November 2021. And when we saw that you don't solve it, we went to seek security guarantees for ourselves," said Armen Grigoryan.
He also recalled that there was no war in Ukraine when Armenia asked for help, and therefore it was incorrect to explain what was happening with the events in Ukraine.
"Now many people say that all this is probably happening because of the war in Ukraine. No, it is all happening because of our practices. I would not call it a change of vector, I would call it a search for some kind of security guarantee. We are also looking for these guarantees and opportunities in Delhi," Armen Grigoryan said.
As for the arguments of the Russian side that mobilization was not announced in Armenia at that time, martial law was not imposed, so why did they call for allies to help, the Secretary of the Security Council noted: "If they want to help, they will find a thousand of reasons to do so. And if they don't want to help, they will find a thousand reasons not to. If we had martial law, they would say that the border is not delimited, so it is not clear where exactly it needs to be protected. If we had a delimited border, they would say, 'Do you want us to go to war with Azerbaijan and Türkiye?' No matter what we do, they would always find reasons (not to help)".
Armen Grigoryan also noted that Armenia expects the CSTO to assess the situation and recognize the border they have to protect: "By the way, they should not send an observation mission at all... After all, this is a military alliance, why would a military alliance send observers?".
Asked whether it was possible to raise Armenia-NATO relations to a new level, the Security Council Secretary replied: "I can speak about relations with the USA, they are intensively developing. We are trying to establish broader economic relations with the USA. The relationship with the USA is very important in order to have advanced technologies. We have had two high-level economic visits recently. From a military-political point of view, they are not yet at the stage to discuss them. This kind of cooperation takes time".
Speaking about whether it would be better to withdraw from the CSTO first, Grigoryan said:
"No, there is no problem with leaving the CSTO, we have no restrictions in terms of cooperation with other countries."