YEREVAN. – Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s arrival in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, would have put him in a not-so-pleasant situation.

Director of CIS Institute Armenian Branch, political scientist Aleksandr Markarov, expressed such a view, as he commented—at the request of Armenian News-NEWS.am—on the information that Nazarbayev will not be attending the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Collective Security Council meeting to be convened Friday in Yerevan, and under the pretext that he is sick and has a cold. 

Markarov recalled that Kazakhstan’s position runs contrary to that of the CSTO with respect to the member states’ uniform approach on some matters, and Kazakhstan knows this fact.

On the other hand, as per the analyst, Nazarbayev seeks to become a mediator in the settlement of regional problems.

“But it’s hard to say whether in this case it’s about a medical or a political illness,” stressed Aleksandr Markarov. “In eastern countries, declaring the president to be sick is not a medical, but a political matter.”