The matter of appointment of the next Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is not an easy matter, and the work on it continues, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and State Secretary Grigory Karasin told RIA Novosti.

He noted the aforesaid when asked whether a new CSTO Secretary General will be appointed before 2020, in connection with Armenia’s hardnosed stance in this regard, and whether such a situation is convenient to Moscow.

“The most important thing is that the CSTO has continued to function productively,” Karasin said, in particular, “Now there is an Acting Secretary General of the organization.

“As for the matter of how the issue in connection with the [next] CSTO Secretary General will be resolved, that’s a vital matter, but they are working on it.”

The office of the CSTO Secretary General has remained vacant ever since the year past, when Armenia’s representative Yuri Khachaturov was dismissed from this position due to criminal proceedings against him in Armenia.

CSTO Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov has been appointed Acting Secretary General of this organization. 

Armenia argues that another of its representative must assume the CSTO Secretary General’s post until 2020, when the country’s term in this office formally comes to an end.

But as Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev had earlier stated, during the CSTO leaders’ summit that was convened last November in the Kazakh capital city of Astana, it was decided that Belarus’ representative—state secretary Stanislav Zas of the Security Council of Belarus—shall be appointed as the next Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.