CSTO has no responsibilities related to NK issue: V.Yevseev

“Lessons should be learned from CSTO Yerevan session,”  Vladimir Yevseev, Lieutenant Colonel, Head of Caucasus Department of the CIS Institute, Director of the Center for Public Policy Research, told 168.am touching upon the results of CSTO Yerevan session.

On October 14 during the CSTO session, launched in Yerevan, presidents of member countries signed about 20 documents and a final statement. According to Russian press, however, the session held in a closed atmosphere, developed under discordances. There are complaints regarding the cancelation of announcing CSTO Secretary General’s name, which was strange, as change of the Secretary General has been discussed long ago.

The new Secretary was to be Armenian representative, and pursuant some information, CSTO member countries fail to come to an agreement around it, thus discussion was postponed until the next meeting to be held by the end of this year in St. Petersburg. Pursuant the statement issued by CSTO, the latter adopted a statement, which reflects approaches of CSTO member countries related to international actual issues. There is reflection to NK conflict as well.

Vladimir Yevseev stated that turning points haven’t been recorded during the session, however, one shouldn’t underestimate its results. In his assessment, basically the session became a litmus paper of discrepancies between CSTO member countries, and they should be properly solved. “Finally, it was uncovered that Russia’s interests don’t coincide with those of Middle Asian countries, Transcaucasia Armenia, only Russia shares interests of all those countries, however, they don’t have shared interests. Absence of the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev can also be explained by that. These are serious messages for CSTO leadership and Russian authorities. Lessons should be learned from the situation,” Yevseev said. According to the latter, however, assessments on CSTO’s being a useless organization, aren’t justified. “It’s clear that under complicated geopolitical situations discordances may emerge, however, CSTO is a cooperation with a wider dimension—against terror, armaments selling by privileged prices, joint military trainings, training in CSTO member countries. CSTO isn’t an organization to cooperate at war only,” Vladimir Yevseev said.

As for the statement on NK conflict Vladimir Yevseev said, that it should have been such. “CSTO doesn’t have responsibilities in NK conflict settlement, it may only wish peace. If attacked, Armenia may ask CSTO for help. This is the CSTO format,” Yevseev concluded.

By Araks Martirosyan