YEREVAN. April 10 (Interfax) - The deployment of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) peacekeeping forces to Armenia in 2021 would have resulted in the formation of a puppet government in the country, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.
"After Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenia in the Sotk-Khoznavar area [the Syunik region in southern Armenia] in May 2021, there were groups demanding that combat actions be launched so that the CSTO could come to our aid. Following their logic, the CSTO was unable to do anything without combat actions. It would've become clear only afterwards that the CSTO wanted to come to Armenia not as an ally but as a peacekeeper, thus excluding Armenia from its system of security guarantees," Pashinyan said at the country's parliament on Wednesday.
If the Armenian government had yielded to emotions at the time, combat actions would have begun inside Armenia's sovereign territory and the organization of early parliamentary elections would have failed, he said.
"Hence, this would have produced a situation where there is no elected administration, CSTO peacekeepers are stationed, a puppet government is formed, and the Armenian state is effectively dissolved," Pashinyan said.
Armenia held early parliamentary elections in June 2021.