Mr Zas said that the CSTO supports the Armenian government’s steps to solve the current situation with Azerbaijan through political and diplomatic means.
-Mr Zas, how do you assess the current level of development of the Collective Security Treaty Organization? What is the situation in the CSTO responsibility zone, what measures are being taken to ensure security, how does the organization solve its tasks and what is its vision for the future?
-The Collective Security Treaty Organization is a multifunctional structure that ensures the protection of its member states on a collective basis not only from external aggression, but also, given the changing military-political developments, from all types of challenges and treats, including terrorism and extremism, drug trafficking, illegal migration, and also in the information security field.
Today we are witnessing growing crisis situations globally. Unfortunately, the level of a military danger is not decreasing for member states. The evidence of this, in addition to other circumstances, is the enlarging presence of military groups of NATO states directly near the western borders of the CSTO responsibility zone, as well as the development of the bloc’s military infrastructures and intensification of its military activity.
We are very concerned about the ongoing tense situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border where clashes and shelling are taking place regularly, as a result of which people are being killed, unfortunately.
In the Central Asia region, the developments in Afghanistan, where the situation remains complex, tense and unpredictable, present a danger. After the change in power in this country, the possibility of the strengthening of the internal armed resistance, the activation of terrorist organizations, the expansion of drug trafficking and the increase in uncontrolled migration is being observed. The country is facing a humanitarian disaster.
We always control the situation in these crisis points in order to respond on time to its potential deterioration. During the joint actions, firstly the CSTO Collective Forces’ military exercises we are developing practical measures aimed at ensuring the security in our responsibility zone. We are preparing the CSTO peacekeeping forces for their possible engagement to peacekeeping actions.
The relevance of other threats to the security of our countries is not decreasing as well – terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal migration, cyber threats. For this purpose the CSTO is taking a number of countermeasures, such as “CANAL’’ anti-drug regional operation, “NELEGAL” operation to counter the illegal migration and human trafficking, “PROXY” operation to counter the crimes in the cyberspace, “NAYOMNIK” operation to prevent the possible involvement of the citizens of CSTO member states in the terrorist activities.
If we talk about the prospects, we are going to open a new direction next year – biosafety. There is already a decision to create a Coordinating Council for Biosafety of the authorized bodies of the CSTO member states under the Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils.
-It’s already several months the representatives of the Azerbaijani armed forces are located in the territory of Armenia, one of the member states of the CSTO. What is the organization’s stance on this fact? What actions will be taken to withdraw them from Armenia’s sovereign territory?
-We are concerned about the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and closely follow it. We think that the border disputes must be solved only through political and diplomatic means, and we support the agreements reached by the statement signed on November 26 this year to take steps to raise the level of security and stability on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, create a bilateral commission with the support of Russia based on the application of the sides for the border delimitation and demarcation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
It’s obvious that steps for de-escalating the situation are necessary more than ever and are of priority importance.
We support the Armenian government’s steps to solve the current situation through political and diplomatic means. We consider this the only way out.
In addition, it’s necessary to more actively use the opportunities of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship. Such approach will provide necessary preconditions for the solution of this problem.
-During the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Dushanbe, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that the logic of developments of the situation in different parts of the Collective security has clearly showed the necessity of upgrading the crisis response mechanisms. He said that this will be formed in practice, also by ensuring the complete activity of the Crisis Response Center. What is your approach on this?
-The main idea of creating a Crisis Response Center is the optimization of anti-crisis decision-making algorithms in case of cr...
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