Official Baku no longer talks about CSTO membership

Baku/24.10.18/Turan: In Yerevan, they once again rejected the possibility of accepting Azerbaijan in the CSTO, reaffirming its intention to veto such a proposal. In Azerbaijan, however, state officials no longer speak about the possibility of the country's entry into the CSTO, although earlier Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov allowed this possibility under circumstances convenient for our country, obviously referring to the Karabakh settlement. However, at the last meeting with journalists, he did not answer the question about the country's accession to the CSTO. Nevertheless, the former Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Tofig Zulfugarov does not consider the silence of officials as evidence of Baku"s lack of interest in joining the pro-Russian military organization (CSTO).

If there is a "Russian project" of returning the occupied territories, then the discussion on membership in the CSTO is not an indication of the reality or not of this idea. Such a project can only be secret, and therefore devoid of any obvious political markers, Zulfugarov wrote on his Facebook page.

Continuing the discussion, Moscow political analyst Gevorg Mirzoyan believes that Azerbaijan"s membership in the CSTO is "not relevant", since Baku could not use the idea of ​​Eurasian integration in exchange for resolving the Karabakh issue.

Alexander Karavayev, a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also does not consider it necessary for Moscow to link Azerbaijan"s membership in a pro-Russian organization with the Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijan is important, but not more than Vietnam, Iran, Egypt ...., Karavayev noted. Local opposition political parties sharply came out against Azerbaijan"s membership in the CSTO, saying that the country would lose sovereignty, and secondly, the Karabakh problem would not be resolved as Baku wants.

Political parties recalled that at one time Azerbaijan joined the CIS, hoping for a change in Russia's position on the Karabakh issue. But it did not happen.

* The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is a military-political union created by the former Soviet republics on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty (CST), signed on May 15, 1992. The CSTO members are Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. In 1993, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Belarus joined the CSTO. Subsequently, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan left the ranks of the organization. -0-