‘My respect for CSTO, EEU has grown significantly’- Pashinyan
16:03,
YEREVAN, MARCH 19, ARMENPRESS. A new secretary general cannot be appointed at the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) without taking into account Armenia’s opinion, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a news conference today.
He noted that Armenia’s stance at the CSTO is very clear. “We believe that the term there is ours, however our colleagues disagree with us because they say this issue isn’t regulated and there’s space for comment. Therefore we are saying let’s bring clarification in the charter before appointing a new secretary general. If for some reason the term in office of the secretary general remains incomplete, we will know how the issue gets regulated. It seems we have reached an agreement over this issue”.
He reminded about the harsh pessimistic comments from certain segments of the society when the government recalled Yuri Khachaturov from the post of Secretary General of the CSTO.
“Very apocalyptic assessments were being voiced on what happened. However, actually nothing happened. We were saying that everyone is equal before the law, and we proved this. In this process Armenia’s interests have fully been protected. The talks that we had in the CSTO format were very useful, these types of conversations have never taken place during the entire period of the CSTO’s existence,” he said.
The Armenian PM highly assessed the atmosphere in both the CSTO and the EEU.
“Unfortunately, the big part of work in these organizations takes place behind closed doors, and the public doesn’t have the opportunity to see in what spirit discussions happen there. I have to say, these are very substantive, deep, interested, sometimes heated discussions, which has significantly increased my respect for these organizations. I think this is an objective and accurate assessment,” Pashinyan said.
Armenian general Yuri Khachaturov was sacked as CSTO Secretary General in November of 2018 after Armenian law enforcement agencies pressed criminal charges against him over the March 1 case. Then the Armenian government recalled Khachaturov from the post.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
