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Armenia’s CSTO membership not discussed at EAEU summit — acting Russian deputy PM

"The CSTO is not a topic for the EAEU, which deals with purely economic matters," Alexey Overchuk said

MOSCOW, May 8. /TASS/. The leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) nations, who gathered for a summit in Moscow, did not raise the topic of Armenia’s membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led security bloc, acting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk said.

"The CSTO is not a topic for the EAEU, which deals with purely economic matters," he told journalists.

The EAEU summit was held in Moscow on Tuesday. Members of the EAEU are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

These countries, plus Tajikistan, are also members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said earlier that Yerevan will refrain from financing the CSTO’s activity in 2024. According to Pashinyan, his country cannot rely on the CSTO and he cannot answer Armenian society’s question why the country should be its member. In recent time, Yerevan has skipped numerous meeting in a range of integration formats. Thus, Pashinyan did not attend the CSTO summit in Minsk in 2023 and announced that Armenia had suspended its participation in this organization.