Armenian has taken over the chairmanship of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) at the summit of the military alliance which ended today (Tuesday 15 September) in the capital of Tadjikistan, Dushambe. The CSTO brings together Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tadjikistan and Kazakhstan
After the opening session the CSTO leaders met in closed session to discuss a number of pressing issues. Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan told a press conference later
“I informed the leaders of the CSTO member states about the situation in the South Caucasus focusing on the threat of escalation of tension on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the Karabakh-Azerbaijani line of contact. In the absence of an appropriate reaction by the international community, the Azerbaijani attempts at escalating the tension are fraught with the risk of destabilization of the situation throughout the region.”
Speaking about develoments within the CSTO, President Sargsyan, said, "generally speaking, we are satisfied with the CSTO’s development pace. We are making vigorous efforts to raise the potential of the CSTO military component", he added..
President Sargsyan outlined the prioirities of the Armenian Chairmanship of the CSTO for the next year. They are,
- Increase of the CSTO collective potential, pursuant to the organization’s statute and based on the principle of succession;
- Further development of the conceptual foundations of CSTO activities and the crisis response system;
- The institutional aspects of raising the effectiveness of CSTO activities, including the issues pertaining to the improvement of foreign policy coordination and promotion of cooperation with other international organizations;
- Further improvement of the management of CSTO system forces and resources, increase of the peacekeeping potential, deepening of military-technical and military-economic cooperation, and optimization of the logistics component for transit and transfer;
The Armenian president said that furthermore the CSTO alliance intends to focus on issues of jointly counteracting international terrorism and extremism, neo-fascism, chauvinism and manifestations of other forms of xenophobia, and also attaches great importance to making concerted efforts in the area of cyber security.
source: commonspace.eu with agencies
photo: President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia addressing a press conference at the end of the summit of the CSTO held in Dushambe, Tadjikistan on Tuesday, 15 September 2015. (picture courtesy of the Press Service of the President of Armenia.)
