Kyrgyzstan supports Belarusian candidate for  the post of CSTO Secretary General

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.