For Armenia, CSTO is an important component of the country's security system, Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan told representatives of Russian media.

According to him, Armenia values ​​the potential of the organization and actively participates in the preparation of the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces.

“We are interested in formation of CSTO’s peacekeeping potential. We believe that the organization has great potential. We actively use the organization’s capabilities in terms of training personnel in partner countries’ universities, actively use military-technical cooperation, the possibility of direct purchases from producers at domestic prices. During Armenia’s presidency of the organization, we managed to finalize the process of creating a strategy of collective security,” the Minister said.

However, he added, the CSTO still has many problems with soft power, the culture of comparing positions on key foreign policy issues.

“Not the CSTO alone, but many international organizations, including military and political blocs, are familiar with the situation when partner countries not only have different, but sometimes opposing positions on foreign policy issues. The countries disagree with each other, moreover attack each other when speaking at the third platforms. We believe that this weakens the organization, especially when it has few members,” Sargsyan added.

Asked about the fight against terrorism within the CSTO, the official recalled that the CSTO has a number of programs such as “Proxy” and “Illegal”  aimed at combating human trafficking, illegal drug trafficking, cyber rimes.

“There is certain background, but it is difficult to say that we have an intensive program of joint fight against terrorism,” he added.