BAKU. Nov 21 (Interfax-Azerbaijan) - Azerbaijan does not believe it will be possible for it to participate in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Novruz Mamedov, deputy chief of the presidential executive office's foreign relations department, told Interfax on Friday.
On Wednesday, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry voiced its protest of Russia's plans to set up a military group with one of the parties in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Russia is a co- chairman of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has been mediating the settlement process in Nagorno-Karabakh.
According to the Foreign Ministry's document, during his visit to Armenia on November 11, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced a plan to create a join Russian-Armenian military group in the future and said that this issue is currently being dealt with by the two countries' military staffs.
Mamedov dismissed as "illogical" the very suggestion that Azerbaijan might participate in any military organizations together with Armenia, with which Azerbaijan is currently at war.
He said that "the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry expressed this protest not to make its intention to join the Collective Security Treaty Organization clear. Its protest had a specific goal - to show its worry and concern over military cooperation between Russia and Armenia."
"We have a certain level of cooperation with Russia in the military and military-technical areas. We also cooperate in the defense area as part of the CIS. But this cooperation extends to a degree which meets our interests. However, we do not participate in organizations like the Collective Security Treaty Organization and are not going to revise our position," he said.