Armen Ashotyan: The new Armenian authorities are obliged to make every effort in order to maintain post of CSTO Secretary General for Armenia after this scandal

ArmInfo. "In his recent interview, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko stated that he was against the candidacy of Yuri Khachaturov as Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and proposed other candidates, but I think that the President of Belarus did not fully reveal this issue, I think that Belarus was against Armenia's chairmanship in this organization as a whole. " This was reported on the page of the social network Facebook by the chairman of the permanent commission of the National Assembly on foreign relations Armen Ashotyan.

The Ambassador noted that this problem is probably not related to Khachaturov's personality, because if membership was transferred to Armenia, then the leaders of other countries could not nominate their candidates for this post.

In particular, Ashotyan wrote: "This whole situation shows how much effort former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan made for our country in order to resolve the issue of the CSTO Secretary General in our favor." As it became clear, the case against Yuri Khachaturov affected the case the point of view of the CSTO member countries and somewhat spoiled the credibility of the organization.The issue of maintaining our positions in the CSTO is becoming increasingly important, against the backdrop of the fact that we can become an observer country in the CSTO, In conclusion to all that has been said above, it becomes obvious that there were problems on the military political agenda of Armenia, which had not existed before. It is obvious that the new Armenian authorities, irrespective of the case instituted against Yuri Khachaturov, are obliged make every effort to preserve the post of Secretary General of the CSTO for Armenia after this scandal, "Ashotyan concluded.

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Belarus-1 that Belarus offered other candidates for the post of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Secretary General, and was right.  "We looked deeper on this issue - from the point of view of the new leadership of Armenia, the policy pursued by Nikol Pashinyan and his government, we discussed our joint actions in the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the problems that now exist in the CSTO itself, as well as those areas of action for which are the responsibility of the members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, "Lukashenko said.

Secretary General of the CSTO Yuri Khachaturov is accused of overthrowing the constitutional order in the so-called "March 1, 2008 case." At that time he held the post of the head of the Yerevan garrison. By a court decision of July 28, he was arrested and then released on bail in the amount of 5 million drams. In the same case, the second Armenian President Robert Kocharian and former Defense Minister Mikael Harutyunyan are on the wanted list.

On August 2, the Special Investigative Service stated that the preventive measure chosen against Yuri Khachaturov is not an obstacle for him to absent himself from Armenia for some time. At the same time, the CAS did not detail the permissible period of its absence.

Official Yerevan invited CSTO colleagues to consider the possibility of replacing the candidacy of the CSTO Secretary General from Armenia in connection with the criminal prosecution of Yuri Khachaturov.