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Armenia does not seek NATO membership, says PM

However Pashinyan pointed out that Armenia planned to continue cooperation with the North Atlantic Alliance

© AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda

MOSCOW, July 26. /TASS/. Armenia does not seek NATO membership, the country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy (or Echo of Moscow) radio station.

"The reason is that we are a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and our goal is to make Armenia’s membership in the organization more effective," he said.

At the same time, Pashinyan pointed out that Armenia planned to continue cooperation with the North Atlantic Alliance. "We have some joint programs, we participate in the Kosovo peacekeeping mission, we have been cooperating with NATO for years, it has been going on for a long time and will continue," he said.

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Putin vows to respond proportionally to establishment of NATO bases near Russian borders

On July 11-12, the Armenian prime minister attended the NATO summit in Brussels. Armenia is taking part in NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan aimed at training and assisting Afghan government troops, which was launched on January 1, 2015. The country’s peacekeepers are part of the German force involved in the mission.

"I took part in a meeting at the summit. Not in the NATO summit but in a summit of countries involved in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan," Pashinyan explained.

The Armenian prime minister has said on numerous occasions that the country was committed to all international agreements and would remain a member of the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Armenia’s Tigran Sarkisyan has been heading the EAEU Board since 2016, while the former Chief of Armenia’s General Staff, Colonel General Yuri Khachaturov, has been serving as CSTO Secretary General since 2017.

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