Thursday, January 19 2017 16:57

ArmInfo.It's Armenia's turn to appoint its representative on the position of CSTO Secretary General, Deputy Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan told journalists after the session of the government on January 19. 

According to Kocharyan if rotation is made in alphabetical order  Armenia will be the first state whose representative should be  appointed as Secretary General. The Deputy Minister noted that the  rotation comes into force from January 1, 2017. "The sides have not  reached consensus after the summit of heads of CSTO states, as the  sides demanded additional time for discussing the issue on the next  meeting of CSTO. The next meeting also failed to reach agreement as  Belarusian President was absent", Kocharyan said. 

According to him as a result, starting from January 1 CSTO is headed  by an acting Secretary General represented by the former Deputy Head.  "The issue should be solved in the upcoming summit as it's Armenia's  representative's turn to assume the position of CSTO Secretary  General", Kochayan noted. 

At the same time Kocharyan refuted rumors that Kazakhstan does not  want to see Armenia's representative on the position of the  organization's Secretary General. "Kazakhstan has never created  obstacles in this issue. It was because of Belarusian President's  absence that consensus was not reached during the regular summit".  Kocharyan stated. 

To recall, CSTO Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov became the  Acting CSTO Secretary General on 1 Jan 2017. To note, earlier it was  decided to make the CSTO Secretary General's mandate rotating - once  every three years in the alphabetical order.  During the CSTO  Collective Security Council's meeting in Yerevan on 14 Oct 2016, the  participants were to name the Secretary General from Armenia.  However, on October 14, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said that  the issue of the CSTO Secretary General was removed from the agenda  due to the absence of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He added  that the heads of the CSTO member states would consider that issue at  a meeting in St. Petersburg in Dec 2016.  However, this issue was not  addressed in St. Petersburg either due to the absence of Belarusian  President Alexander Lukashenko.