ArmInfo. Belarus hopes that the Armenian side will soon announce the date of the meeting with State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Stanislav Zas. This was announced today at a press briefing by thead of the department of information and digital diplomacy, Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz, the BelTA correspondent reports..
As the Foreign Ministry spokesman stressed, Stanislav Zas held meetings with the heads of five states who supported his candidacy. At the same time, it is known that Armenia would like to retain the chairmanship in the CSTO until 2020. "The CSTO has been working without a secretary general for a long time," Anatoly Glaz said. "The situation does not benefit the organization and requires speedy resolution. Especially since at meetings in Astana and St. Petersburg, the heads of the CSTO states favored the candidate from Belarus."
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said that back in December last year, on behalf of the president of Kyrgyzstan's chairman of the Collective Security Council, the CSTO Secretariat prepared the necessary draft decisions on the appointment of Stanislav Zas as Secretary General. "Stanislav Zas immediately held meetings in five capitals with the heads of state. All the presidents supported his candidacy. In light of the fact that last December parliamentary elections were held in Armenia, and then the government was formed, we were aware of the fact that The Armenian Minister did not have the opportunity to meet with the Belarusian candidate. Now this period is over. Therefore, we expect the Armenian side to announce the dates of this meeting in the near future, " Anatoly Glaz said.
The official representative of the Foreign Ministry stressed that Belarus is committed to constructive cooperation with Yerevan. "We hope that we can find mutual understanding. After all, the post of Secretary General of an international military-political organization is not a hotel room that can be booked, even if there is no way to use it again," Glaz said. At the same time, according to the representative of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, the member states of the organization are interested that this, in general, technical aspect of the CSTO activity does not affect the work of the organization and bilateral relations between its participants.
The position of the CSTO Secretary General became vacant after the representative of Armenia Yuri Khachaturov was released from it in 2018 due to criminal prosecution in his homeland. His deputy, Valery Semerikov, became the acting secretary general of the CSTO. Armenia insists that the leadership position should remain with the representative of Yerevan until 2020. Meanwhile, as President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said earlier at the summit in Astana on November 8, it was decided that the representative of Belarus should take now the post of the CSTO Secretary General. On December 21, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko held a working meeting with the country's State Security Secretary Stanislav Zas and signed a draft decision of the CSTO Collective Security Council to appoint him as the general secretary of the organization. Earlier, Zas had already visited Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Russia to coordinate his appointment. At the same time, Yerevan was informed that visit of Zas to Armenia is not planned. Zas himself noted that he was ready at any time convenient for the Armenian prime minister to arrive in Armenia, to meet with the head of government, the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of defense. He expressed hope for a consensus on his appointment.
