Interfax - Russia & CIS Military Newswire
August 3, 2018 Friday 10:50 AM MSK


Armenia plans to nominate ex-defense minister Arutyunyan for CSTO sec
gen - media

YEREVAN. Aug 3

Armenia intends to nominate Lt. Gen. Vagarshak Arutyunyan, who served
as Armenia's defense minister in 1999-2000, as a candidate for the
post of secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), Armenian media reported, citing a government
source.

In different years, Arutyunyan, 62, held the posts of deputy interior
minister, deputy chief of staff of the CIS combined armed forces'
central command, and deputy head of the coordination headquarters for
CIS military cooperation.

Arutyunyan was demoted to major general from the rank of lieutenant
general and was subsequently dismissed from his post after he fell out
with Armenia's then President Robert Kocharyan in the wake of a
terrorist act in the country's parliament on September 27, 1999.

The Armenian Special Investigation Service on July 27 indicted
incumbent CSTO Secretary General Yury Khachaturov in a case dealing
with the dispersal of a demonstration on March 1, 2008. Khachaturov
served as chief of the Yerevan garrison of the Armenian Armed Forces
at the time.

A Yerevan court ruled to arrest Khachaturov, who has been charged with
attempting to overthrow Armenia's constitutional system in 2008, but
then agreed to free him on bail.

Another suspect in this case is Kocharyan, who was Armenia's president
from 1998 to 2008. He has been remanded in custody for two months.

However, Armenia's Special Investigation Service on August 2 allowed
Khachaturov to leave Yerevan and return to his office in Moscow,
compelling him to come to investigative agencies whenever necessary.

Khachaturov was elected the CSTO's secretary general for three years
in May 2017.

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