Armenia assumes CSTO rotating chairmanship

YEREVAN, Jan.3 /ARKA/. Armenia has assumed the rotating 2022 chairmanship of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post-Soviet security bloc, comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan.

The chairmanship was handed over to Armenia by Tajikistan at the organization’s session in September 2021. In 2022 it will be handed over to Belarus in late 2022. The member states chair the organization in turn, according to alphabetical order.

The secretary-general of the organization is appointed for three years (regardless of the country’s chairmanship), while the Permanent Council is led by a representative of the state that holds the chairmanship in rotation.

Armenia’s Permanent Representative to the CSTO Viktor Biyagov assumed this post, while the country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan became the Chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council.

This year, the CSTO will celebrate two anniversaries - the 30th anniversary of the Treaty on Collective Security and the 20th anniversary of the current organization’s formation.

CSTO Secretary-General Stanislav Zas was earlier quoted by TASS news agency as saying that the key challenges were the escalating presence of NATO’s forces approaching the CSTO’s western borders as well as the complicated and unpredictable situation in Afghanistan.

According to him, Afghanistan could see a wider armed standoff, stepped-up activity by terrorist organizations, a surge in drug trafficking and mounting uncontrolled migration. -0-