Armenia recalled its permanent representative to the CSTO
Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturian on Tuesday recalled Viktor Biyagov from his post as Armenia’s permanent representative to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
The corresponding decree was published on the website of the head of the Armenian state.
However, a new permanent representative has not yet been appointed. The Armenian side has not yet given any comments on this matter.
“Based on the proposal of the Prime Minister [Никола Пашиняна]in accordance with the articles of the Constitution and the law on diplomatic service, recall Viktor Biyagov from the post of permanent and plenipotentiary representative of Armenia in the CSTO,” the document says.
The former permanent representative was appointed Ambassador of the Republic to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Armenia has repeatedly expressed claims to the CSTO. They began to sound during the conflict around Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020. Subsequently, after armed clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Yerevan repeatedly accused the organization of inaction.
In May, Pashinyan allowed Armenia to leave the organization. At the same time, he stated that it was the CSTO that left Armenia because it did not want to send a monitoring mission at the request of the republic. At the same time, the representative of the CSTO Secretariat, Yuri Shuvalov, said at the end of March that the organization is in constant readiness to send an observation mission to the republic.
After the bloc’s summit, held at the end of November 2022 in Yerevan, Pashinyan did not sign joint documents related to conflicts on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.