MOSCOW. Dec 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Azerbaijan cannot joint the Collective Security Treaty Organization as long as one of its member-countries continues to occupy part of its territory.
"As long as one treaty member doesn't stop occupying the territory of the other, these two cannot be bound by one and the same treaty," Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev told a joint news conference of CIS defense ministers at the Interfax central office in Moscow on Wednesday.
"This is our greatest problem," he added.
He said this was the reason for Azerbaijan's refusal to join the organization.
"The Armenian armed forces are occupying Azerbaijani territory. Armenia is a side to the treaty, and we cannot be a party to such a treaty with that country," Abiyev said.
As a CIS country Azerbaijan has raised the matter many times "but the problem is not being resolved," he said.
"We believe a great drawback of the treaty is that the parties to it have not demanded that the occupying state free the occupied territories," he said.
Baku lost control over Nagorno Karabakh and the adjacent seven districts in a bloody conflict that began in the 1990s between Armenians and Azeris over Karabakh.