‘It’s a difficult period, but we are prepared for this’

The Belarusian Head of State, Aleksandr Lukashenko, met with Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation Imangali Tasmagambetov on the eve of the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council. Belarus will preside over the CSTO in 2023.

“You and I are facing an important task. We need to hold a session of our military-political alliance at a high organisational level. It’s a difficult period, but we are prepared for this, and I hope that this summit of the military-political organisation in Minsk will help build up our efforts to strengthen defence and security of CSTO members,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The President of Belarus drew attention to some features of the current moment, 
“You understand that we are going through a difficult period in the post-Soviet space. First of all, this is due to conflict situations, including in the CSTO area of responsibility. I have always emphasised: it is good that at this moment in the south, in Central Asia, we have found the outcome of some conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan also ended. We need to think about the future — how the two states are going to live there.  It is clear that in both cases the problems had been accumulating for many years. These are long-standing points of tension. Yet, we have seen something positive happening in this regard. This is not because we presided there, but during this period (there were good steps) there was a moment, a movement, a trend towards calming the situation in the post-Soviet space. I emphasise once again that this is in the area of responsibility of the CSTO. Because both Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are members of the CSTO.”
Imangali Tasmagambetov thanked the Head of State for the opportunity to personally discuss problematic issues and current work processes related to a number of important events — a joint meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Council of Defence Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of the CSTO Security Councils, as well as a session of the CSTO Collective Security Council.
Regarding the implementation of the action plan for the implementation of the decisions of the Collective Security Council (November 2022 session) and the implementation of priority areas of the Republic of Belarus during the chairmanship of the CSTO, a report has been prepared. Imangali Tasmagambetov announced its details to the President, “32 out of 34 measures have been implemented. Two measures have not been fulfilled, unfortunately. These are, first of all, our international contacts with European international organisations, such as the OSCE, primarily because of their stance. The second item was the Armenia assistance document which the Collective Security Council instructed us to finalise.”
The CSTO Secretary General added that the Armenian side did not express any interest in the document, despite the fact that all allies supported the decision. “Moreover, in the final part of our work they asked to remove it from the agenda.”

Based on materials of sb.by and belta.by