The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is reportedly struggling to find its new secretary general.
Citing unnamed Armenian government sources, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported last week that Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian would be appointed as the new CSTO secretary general, replacing Nikolai Bordyuzha, a Russian former KGB officer who has been the head of the organization since 2003.
But on October 16, Ohanyan said in an interview with the website news.am that he wouldn't take the job. Asked whether it is true that he will be dismissed from the post of the Defense Minister in October and be appointed as a CSTO Secretary General within the framework of the governmental changes, Ohanyan said: “The changes in the Government can impact anyone. We know what procedures are in place for forming a government and which political and other governmental forces form it. As to my appointment as a CSTO Secretary General, no such offer has [so far] been made”
Asked if he would turn down the job if offered it, he said: "Definitely."
Bordyuzha himself said that his successor would be named by October 14, when a CSTO summit is scheduled in Armenian capital Yerevan, and that it would be an Armenian, according to news.am.
The regional security organization was initially formed in 1992 for a five-year period by the members of the CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) — Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which were joined by Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Belarus the following year. A 1994 treaty reaffirmed the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force, and prevented signatories from joining any “other military alliances or other groups of states” directed against members states. The CST was then extended for another five-year term in April 1999, and was signed by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. In October 2002, the group was renamed as the CSTO. Uzbekistan that suspended its membership in 1999 returned to the CSTO again in 2006 after it came under international criticism for its brutal crackdown of antigovernment demonstrations in the eastern city of Andijon in May 2005. On June 28, 2012, Uzbekistan announced that it has suspended its membership of the CSTO, saying the organization ignores Uzbekistan and does not consider its views. The CSTO is currently an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.
