Statement by President Serzh Sargsyan at the Enlarged Session of the CSTO Collective Security Council

Dear Mr. Chairman,
Dear heads of state,
Dear partakers,

I would like to thank once again Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmon, the acting chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council, for the hospitality and for the excellent organization of the summit.

Tajikistan’s chairmanship of our organization was rhythmical which was aimed at the fulfillment of resolutions made at the December session and at achieving concrete results.

The CSTO has gradually expanded its collaboration with international and regional organizations, e.g. with the UN in terms of peacekeeping, with the OSCE on the issues of broadening inter-institutional dialogue.

From 12 to 21 May this year, an impromptu combat readiness test was held aimed at checking the abilities of the contingent of the CSTO Collective Rapid Response Forces to fulfill their functional tasks.

Today’s agenda items and the priorities presented by the Republic of Armenia ensure the continuity of the organization’s policy of raising the effectiveness of CSTO activities and its international reputation. Cooperation within the frames of the CSTO is one of the pivotal priorities of Armenia’s foreign policy, and we, as a CSTO chairing country, are ready to closely collaborate with our colleagues to ensure the fulfillment of provisions stipulated in the Collective Security Treaty. I strongly believe that it is our common position.

During the narrow format meeting, we exchanged views on present-day issues. As always, it was traditionally open and trustful.

I informed the heads of the CSTO member states about the situation in the South Caucasus region, drawing their attention to the acute exacerbation of tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and on the Nagorno-Karabakh-Azerbaijani line of contact. I will not dwell on this issues again and will only note that the attempts of the Azerbaijani side to increase tensions are fraught, in the absence of an adequate response from the international community, with destabilization of the whole region.

Dear counterparts,

Today our attention is focused on the issues of improving our foreign policy coordination on international platforms, upgrading the defense capability of our countries, heightening the fighting ability of the collective forces, and of introducing and improving a crisis response system.

Our efforts at improving the operative and combat training of special forces units and at their rearmament, cooperating in the area of defense industry, and at optimizing transport and transit issues for defensive purposes are targeted at dealing with this issue.

It is high time for the creation of collective air forces to further promote defense cooperation between the CSTO members states. In this context, we attach great importance to fulfill the resolution of the CSTO Collective Security Council on the Protocols on the Composition and Allocation of the CSTO Collective Aviation Forces.
The relevant issue of today’s meeting is the broadening of practical cooperation in the security field, including the issue of making concerted efforts to upgrade the CSTO collective security system. The improvement of the combat training of collective rapid response forces and reequipping them with modern arms, military and special techniques is a crucial dimension of this field.

Taking into account the fact that the terrorist threat posed by extremist organizations and groups continues to be one of the central challenges of international and regional security, the joint steps in the aforementioned directions allow minimizing those threats and developing effective mechanisms to fight them.

I strongly believe that our further efforts to fulfill the agreements through concrete steps will increase the real contribution of the CSTO to the promotion and strengthening of regional stability and security.