YEREVAN. Dec 6 (Interfax) - Reciprocal commitments of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states should be adjusted, acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, quoted by the government press service.
"Let's specify our relations. Are we allies or not? If it is so, we should honor all of our commitments, but we do not understand any actions, which essentially contravene these commitments. We should know on whom we can rely and on whom not," Pashinyan said at a meeting with the Armenian diaspora in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
He expressed confidence that the CSTO can prevent Azerbaijan from settling the Karabakh crisis by the use of force.
"Now one question arouses as to whether the CSTO is going to use this instrument or not. It is a strategic issue for us. The issue of the CSTO secretary general is secondary, tertiary and even less critical. Let's a Belarusian representative will be at this position forever, but our reciprocal commitments should be fulfilled," Pashinyan said.
"There are plenty of issues pertaining to the stance of the CSTO countries on Nagorno Karabakh and at what extent this proceeds from strategic partnership," he said.
"When we specify relations in the context of these issues, I can guarantee that there will never be any problems in our relations. We don't need any formal statuses, we need reciprocal commitments and their implementation," the acting Armenian prime minister said.
On Thursday, on the sidelines of the summits of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in St. Petersburg Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that a Belarusian representative will become a new CSTO secretary general. The position of the CSTO secretary general became vacant, after Armenia has recalled its representative Yury Khachaturov ahead of time, as the latter has served about 18 months out of three years stipulated in the CSTO charter. Russian representative Valery Semerikov, who has previously served as the CSTO deputy secretary general, was appointed acting secretary general.