Acting CSTO Head Says Many Members Doubt Merit Of Keeping Armenian Chairmanship

According to the results of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit, there are two approaches to the appointment of the new Secretary General, either to use principle of rotation or to choose another Armenian representative, but many members of the organization doubt the effectiveness of the second option, the organization's Acting Secretary General Valery Semerikov said Saturday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th November, 2018) According to the results of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit, there are two approaches to the appointment of the new Secretary General, either to use principle of rotation or to choose another Armenian representative, but many members of the organization doubt the effectiveness of the second option, the organization's Acting Secretary General Valery Semerikov said Saturday.

"Following the results of the discussion of the heads of the CSTO member states in Astana on November 8, there are several approaches, including the rotation principle in the Russian alphabet stipulated by the Collective Security Council (CSC) decision (in this case, the Republic of Belarus is the next) ... Another position is to appoint an Armenian representative for the time remaining before the end of the three-year period: many countries are questioning the effectiveness of such a step," Semerikov said in a commentary published on the organization's website.

The CSTO CSC will continue to consider the issue of appointing a new secretary general in the spirit of constructive interaction and alliance, Semerikov stressed.

"At the same time, I want to emphasize that the decision in any case will be made purely in the format of the six CSTO countries on the basis of consensus, taking into account the interests of all parties," he said.

On November 2, Armenia prematurely recalled its representative at the post of the CSTO Secretary General, Yuri Khachaturov, and his deputy Semerikov became the organization's acting head. At the same time, Yerevan insists it should retain the leadership until 2020.

At the CSTO summit in Astana on November 8, it was decided that the representative of Belarus should become the next secretary general, "because under the charter, alphabetically, Belarus goes after Armenia," Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday at a meeting with the Ambassador of Azerbaijan that he had three possible candidates for the CSTO Secretary General.

However, Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan told reporters that he would demand explanations from Lukashenko and Nazarbayev in connection with their statements about the situation in the CSTO. In particular, Pashinyan believes that Lukashenko should not have told about the details of the CSTO meeting, which was held behind closed doors, especially to a representative of a country that is not a member of this organization.

The final decision on the issue will be made on December 6 in St. Petersburg.