A new CSTO leader will not be elected in St. Petersburg. Arsen Gasparyan

The election of the new Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will take place in 2019. Arsen Gasparyan, the chief adviser of the Acting Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, said this in an interview with the Russian RBC agency.

“This issue will not be discussed during the [EAEU] summit to be held in St. Petersburg on December 6. The agenda was sent to all the participants of the St. Petersburg meeting,” Gasparyan noted. According to him, meetings in the CSTO format are not scheduled until December 31, so the name of the new head of the organization will not be specified until the New Year.

Yuri Khachaturov, who has held the position of CSTO Secretary General since April 2017, and who is accused of subverting the constitutional order in Armenia in the “March 1” case, was released from that position a month ago.

At the CSTO summit held in Astana on November 8, a new secretary general was not appointed, and according to the official report, the heads of state agreed to continue discussions on the issue during the meeting to be held in St. Petersburg on December 6.