MOSCOW, November 23. /TASS/. Leaders of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-led security bloc) member countries will gather for a summit in Minsk. However, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will skip the meeting.

According to the Kremlin press service, the agenda will include "issues of cooperation within the CSTO, in particular measures to improve the collective security system, as well as international and regional problems."

Ahead of the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed security issues with his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rakhmon, who paid an official visit to Moscow. After the talks, the Russian president said that the Russian side had supplied Tajikistan with two divisions (eight units) of S-300 systems. He pledged that Russia is ready to complete supplies for the unified CSTO air defense system.

The Minsk summit was preceded by a meeting between CSTO foreign and defense ministers and Security Council secretaries who discussed the current military political situation in the region. The Russian foreign ministry said that in the difficult geopolitical situation the CSTO is assuming the role of "the pivot mechanism of security and stability not only in the zone of its responsibility but across the entire Eurasian space." The organization is building up its potential and demonstrating its "ability to respond to any external threats."

Nevertheless, according to the ministry, the CSTO is a purely defensive union and poses no threat to other states. Its member countries stand for resolving conflicts by political and diplomatic means and call for consolidated international efforts against terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, illegal migration, and transborder crime.

The CSTO summit will take place amid the strains in the organization’s relations with Armenia. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused the CSTO of not helping his country during the standoff with Azerbaijan in May 2021 and in September 2022. On this backdrop, Yerevan asked the CSTO to remove the issue of assistance from the agenda and Pashinyan told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that he was not planning to attend the summit. Moreover, Armenian foreign and defense ministers skipped the CSTO events preceding the summit, and Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan said that he would not attend a meeting of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly in December. Earlier, Armenian recalled its ambassador to the organization.

At the same time, Yerevan says it is not planning to withdraw from the CSTO and will continue work on the draft document on a mission to Armenia, despite the changes in Yerevan’s position.

Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said earlier that Moscow hoped that Armenian continue its work within the CSTO and regretted that the Armenian side would not be represented at the Minsk summit on November 23.

The previous CSTO summit was held last year in Yerevan. In 2024, the presidency will go over to Kazakhstan.