During the annual closing press conference, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, referred to the CSTO mission and Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.
“Of course, we would like our and our colleagues’ solidarity, votes, and positions to be united in the CSTO and other structures. But for us, it is a partnership, not an imperative relationship. Among them, we have problems in Armenia, where we were advancing the sending of the CSTO mission, which we agreed upon during the Yerevan forum. Still, that decision was not adopted because the RA partners insisted that there should be a harsh criticism of Azerbaijan in that document. But if we want to send a mission to the CSTO, it is not necessarily due to external calls and announcements. Until now, we are ready to send a CSTO mission to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. However, despite our allies and the CSTO mission being ready, the Armenian side prefers to agree with the EU. It will be ineffective if the EU mission is without Azerbaijan’s consent.”
