Nikolai Topornin: Pashinyan refused to attend the CIS summit because of the Karabakh situation

Head of the Center for European Information, MGIMO Associate Professor Nikolai Topornin commented to Alpha News on the refusal of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to participate in the CIS summit in Kyrgyzstan.

According to the expert, the reason for Pashinyan’s refusal was latest events in Karabakh.

“The reason is what happened in Karabakh, when Azerbaijan solved the issue by force. Now we know that Karabakh is becoming the territory of Azerbaijan. I think this is the main reason why Pashinyan has decided not to attend. Pashinyan blamed Russia and said that no one helped Armenia, and, accordingly, he started to interact more with France and with the European Union. He began to ask them to provide military assistance to Armenia. At least that’s what we see.

Of course, when Pashinyan positions himself this way, his presence may not be well appreciated. If he slowly wants to strengthen cooperation with European countries, then why go to Bishkek? What good could possibly happen there? The Armenian Prime Minister probably even took offense not so much at Russia but at the structures, at the CSTO, because no one really helped Armenia in the conflict with Azerbaijan.

It is clear that Armenia counted on Russia most of all, but besides Russia, there are also Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Belarus in the CSTO. He probably wanted the position of these countries to be clearer, but all of them remained neutral. Well, they said not to shoot at civilians, but when there were hostilities between Azerbaijanis and Armenians, everyone kept silent,” Topornin said.