During the Q&A session with the Parliament, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan referred to Armenia’s willingness to deploy a European Union (EU) observation mission on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border instead of a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) observation mission given the speculations around the topic.

Particularly, Pashinyan highlighted: “In the case of CSTO, we formulated the issue very clearly. The CSTO has documents that include the regulation about the response to crises, adopted in 2010. The document details all necessary actions, but, at the same time, there is a clear understanding and concept of the zone of responsibility of the CSTO. We have asked the CSTO about one of the most crucial principles - to adjust its zone of responsibility in Armenia. In other words, we asked them to tell us their idea of what the Armenian Republic is. We have not yet received a clear answer to this question.” 

Referring to the EU civilian mission, Pashinyan added: “The EU civilian mission was possible since during the quadrilateral meeting in Prague, the EU clearly outlined what the Republic of Armenia is. In other words, they said that in their opinion, the map of the Republic of Armenia is this, or we “showed” the map; they took it into account and confirmed it. They came to monitor and observe that area.”

Pashinyan stated that before the deployment of the EU observation mission, Azerbaijan justified its aggressive behavior against Armenia on Western platforms by the “fact” that the Armenian PM is deploying more Russian troops on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and is preparing a joint Armenian-Russian aggressive attack on Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan with its aggressive attacks is simply trying to balance the situation, to manage its vulnerabilities to some extent. 

“In the West, an attempt was made to present Armenia as a participant in “Russia's aggressive policy," and in Russia, an attempt was made to present Armenia as a participant in the Western conspiracy,” he concluded.