YEREVAN, DECEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. The issue of the appointment of Decretary-General of the CSTO is not resolved yet. It has to be decided by consensus, ARMENPRESS reports, citing Sputnik Armenia, Arman Yeghoyan, spokesperson to the acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, announced.

“I reaffirm my previous announcement. The issue of the appointment of the Secretary General of the CSTO was not resolved during the December 6 Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting and could not be resolved, since no CSTO session took place. I also reaffirm the position of Armenia, which is that the issue has to be decided by consensus during an official meeting in the sideline sof the CSTO”, Yeghoyan said.

President of Kazakhastan Nursultan Nazarbayev announced on December 13 that in ST. Petersburg the CSTO member states took a decision to support the candidacy of Stanislav Zas, proposed by Belarus. Nazarbayev talked about this in a meeting with Stanislav Zas in Astana, who is the State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus. Nazarbayev expressed his support to the representative of Belarus for the post of CSTO Secretary General.

On November 2 Yuri Khachaturov, former CSTO Secretary General from Armenia, was relived fron his post. Armenia has initiated a criminal case against him over March 1 case. It was expected that a new Secretary General would be appointed on November 8, during the CSTO Collective Security Council session, but it was decided to decide the issue during December 6 session, which never took place. After that President of Kazakhastan Nursultan Nazarbayev announced that the candidate of Belarus should be appointed CSTO Secretary-General, despite the fact that Armenia’s representative has the right to be in office until 2020.

Currently, Deputy Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Valery Semerikov temporarily assumed the duties of the CSTO Secretary General.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan