ArmInfo. Kyrgyzstan supports the appointment of Stanislav Zas, Secretary of State of the Security Council of Belarus, as the CSTO Secretary General, Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov said, Interfax reported.
"This year, the chairmanship in the CSTO passed to Kyrgyzstan, I have already received the Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus (Stanislav Zas, ed. note), we talked, and I signed the decision," S. Jeenbekov said at a press conference. "I believe that we should not leave such an important and necessary organization as the CSTO without the secretary general," the President of Kyrgyzstan stressed.
The vacancy of the CSTO Secretary General opened after Armenia early recalled its representative Yuri Khachaturov, who has worked in this position for a year and a half from the three years stipulated by the charter. Russian representative Valery Semerikov became acting Secretary General, who previously worked as Deputy Secretary General of the CSTO. In July, the Yerevan Court of First Instance decided to arrest Khachaturov, who was accused of trying to overthrow the constitutional system in Armenia in 2008, and then agreed to release him on bail. In early November, the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, following the results of the session of the Collective Security Council of the CSTO, said that the next Secretary General of the Organization after Armenia should be chosen from Belarus. For his part, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that the new CSTO Secretary General will be a Belarusian representative. In Yerevan did not confirm A. Lukashenko's statement that the post of the CSTO Secretary General will be taken by the representative of Belarus. "The issue has not been resolved yet. (...) The position of Armenia in this matter has not undergone any changes," press secretary of the Prime Minister of Armenia Arman Yeghoyan said on December 6. Meanwhile, Yerevan insists that the new CSTO Secretary General until 2020 should be the representative of Armenia. The CSTO includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.