Thursday, February 14 2019 17:09

ArmInfo. Belarus hopes that the Armenian side will soon announce the date of the meeting with State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Stanislav Zas. This was  announced today at a press briefing by thead of the department of  information and digital diplomacy, Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly  Glaz,  the BelTA correspondent reports..

As the Foreign Ministry spokesman stressed, Stanislav Zas held  meetings with the heads of five states who supported his candidacy.  At the same time, it is known that Armenia would like to retain the  chairmanship in the CSTO until 2020. "The CSTO has been working  without a secretary general for a long time," Anatoly Glaz said. "The  situation does not benefit the organization and requires speedy  resolution.  Especially since at meetings in Astana and St.  Petersburg, the heads of the CSTO states favored the candidate from  Belarus."

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said that back in December last  year, on behalf of the president of Kyrgyzstan's chairman of the  Collective Security Council, the CSTO Secretariat prepared the  necessary draft decisions on the appointment of Stanislav Zas as  Secretary General. "Stanislav Zas immediately held meetings in five  capitals with the heads of state. All the presidents supported his  candidacy. In light of the fact that last December parliamentary  elections were held in Armenia, and then the government was formed,  we were aware of the fact that The Armenian Minister did not have the  opportunity to meet with the Belarusian candidate. Now this period is  over. Therefore, we expect the Armenian side to announce the dates of  this meeting in the near future, " Anatoly Glaz said.

The official representative of the Foreign Ministry stressed that  Belarus is committed to constructive cooperation with Yerevan. "We  hope that we can find mutual understanding. After all, the post of  Secretary General of an international military-political organization  is not a hotel room that can be booked, even if there is no way to  use it again," Glaz said. At the same time, according to the  representative of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, the member states  of the organization are interested that this, in general, technical  aspect of the CSTO activity does not affect the work of the  organization and bilateral relations between its participants.

The position of the CSTO Secretary General became vacant after the  representative of Armenia Yuri Khachaturov was released from it in  2018 due to criminal prosecution in his homeland. His deputy, Valery  Semerikov, became the acting secretary general of the CSTO. Armenia  insists that the leadership position should remain with the  representative of Yerevan until 2020. Meanwhile, as President of  Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said earlier at the summit in Astana  on November 8, it was decided that the representative of Belarus  should take now the post of the CSTO Secretary General. On December  21, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko held a working meeting  with the country's State Security Secretary Stanislav Zas and signed  a draft decision of the CSTO Collective Security Council to appoint  him as the general secretary of the organization. Earlier, Zas had  already visited Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Russia to  coordinate his appointment. At the same time, Yerevan was informed  that visit of Zas to Armenia is not planned. Zas himself noted that  he was ready at any time convenient for the Armenian prime minister  to arrive in Armenia, to meet with the head of government, the  minister of foreign affairs and the minister of defense. He expressed  hope for a consensus on his appointment.