Khachaturov's resignation means Armenia's loss of post of CSTO Secretary General

After the Armenia's withdrawal of Yuri Khachaturov from the post of the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a representative of Belarus is claiming this position, informed sources have stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 2, Yuri Khachaturov, the Secretary General of the CSTO, accused in the case of the dispersal of protesters in Yerevan in 2008, was recalled from his post before the end of his term in office.

A representative of Belarus will most likely take the post for the next three years, the "Kommersant" wrote on November 4 in the article "The CSTO Chooses Its Secretary General", citing diplomatic sources in three member-countries.

An informed source of the newspaper has called Stanislav Zas, the state secretary of the Belarus' Security Council, to be the most likely candidate for the post of the General Secretary of the CSTO; however, he has stressed that "the leaders of the member-countries will have the last word."

At the same time, according to the "Kommersant", Armenia hoped to offer its representative to the post, instead of recalled Khachaturov.

The issue of appointing a new secretary general of the CSTO may be put on the agenda of the next CSTO session to be held in Astana on November 8, said Aibek Smadiyarov, the official spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Kazakhstan.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 5, 2018 at 09:18 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.