On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take part in a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CSTO) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which will be held in Yerevan.
The Russian foreign minister arrived in Armenia, which chairs the CSTO, on Wednesday and held talks with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan on Thursday. Lavrov noted following the talks that the topics of Russia and Armenia's cooperation in the organization were discussed at the level of delegations.
Russian Foreign Ministry official representative Maria Zakharova earlier reported that the participants of the meeting will sum up the results of multilateral cooperation within the CSTO and discuss the prospects for further cooperation. In addition, the ministers will discuss the state of the international and regional situation and its impact on the security of member states of the organization, as well as issues of improvement of the mechanism of crisis response of the CSTO.
Following the meeting, it is planned to sign a plan of consultations of representatives of the CSTO member states on issues of foreign defense and security policy for 2022-2024. According to Zakharova, Lavrov has a number of bilateral meetings planned on the margins of the event.
Earlier, the CSTO reported that its Secretary-General Stanislav Zas will also participate in the meeting and provide the Council members with information about the work being done by the CSTO Secretariat and the Joint Staff to improve the organization's crisis response mechanism in the current geopolitical realities.
Priorities for cooperation
The ministers are likely to discuss the results of the CSTO anniversary summit in Moscow on May 16 which was held offline for the first time in two and a half years. Russian President Vladimir Putin noted earlier that the joint statement of the leaders confirmed the determination of the CSTO countries to continue the partnership cooperation in various areas of military and defense development and to increase coordinated actions in the international arena. The final document also stated that the CSTO is ready to ensure the security of its borders, including against the background of the disturbing situation in Afghanistan and on other external borders.
It is possible that the foreign ministers will discuss cooperation within the CSTO on the example of the events in Kazakhstan, where mass disturbances took place in January. President of the republic Kassym-Jomart Tokayev then announced an attempted coup d'etat and appealed to the organization for help. Many officials, including leaders of CSTO member states, subsequently noted that the situation in Kazakhstan fully demonstrated the need for and effectiveness of the organization's forces.
In a recent interview, Lavrov also noted that, in accordance with the organization's charter and at the request of the country concerned, the CSTO would use force if an acute situation arose, as it happened in Kazakhstan. He also stressed that NATO countries do not like the development of the organization.
About the CSTO
The CSTO is an international security organization, including six states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. The agreement on the establishment of the organization was signed on May 15, 1992, in Tashkent by the heads of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (not a member of the CSTO since 2012).
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS