ARMENIA ATTACHES BIG SIGNIFICANCE TO ITS CHAIRMANSHIP IN CSTO

ITAR-TASS
July 21 2008
Russia

Armenia attaches great significance to its upcoming chairmanship in
the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and will work to
improve interaction with all of its member states, Foreign Minister
Edvard Nalbandyan said at a meeting with CSTO Secretary-General
Nikolai Bordyuzha on Monday.

The meeting focused on Armenia’s upcoming chairmanship and events
scheduled for that period.

Nalbandyan and Bordyuzha discussed "the need to consider the
biggest problems Armenia plans to address within the CSTO during
its chairmanship".

They also exchanged views on the CSTO agenda and ways to implement it,
including the preparation of the meetings of the Collective Security
Council and other CSTO bodies provided for in the organisation’s
charter, after which Armenia will assume the chairmanship.

Nalbandyan and Bordyuzha also talked about the CSTO joint command
and staff exercise Rubezh-2008 to begin in Armenia on July 22.

"The first and second stages are essentially political stages,
during which the steps will be determined for the CSTO states and
the organisation as a whole to take on the basis of the situation
simulated in the course of the exercise in order to reduce tensions
caused in the collective security region by destructive forces, and a
mechanism for ensuring a political settlement of the acute situation
will be worked out," the Armenian Foreign Ministry said.

"The first and the second stages are more interesting for the CSTO
Secretariat than the subsequent ones when purely military actions,
traditional for all command and staff exercises, are to be practised ,"
Bordyuzha said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress