YEREVAN, December 28. /ARKA/. Strategic essence and content of the Collective Security Treaty Organization were briefly discussed at the meeting between Armenian Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pashinyan said Thursday night in his live address to Armenian people on his Facebook page upon his return from Moscow.  

“Our stance is that we need institutional solutions here to make in the CSTO regulations the amendments foreseeing such situations for avoiding such disputes caused by the lack of coordination,” Pashinyan said. 

The turmoil in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was triggered by Armenia’s decision in early November to recall Yuri Khachaturov, a former chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, who had been serving as CSTO secretary general. In Armenia Khachaturov had been charged with involvement in the violent crackdown on the opposition in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election in 2008. Armenia insists that the position should be held by its representative until the end of Khachaturov’s term, which ends in mid 2019. 

During a November 8 CSTO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan and Belarus insisted that the rotating position be handed to Belarus, which is next in the list of the countries to assume the position by alphabetical order.  -0—