ArmInfo. Despite the lack of foreign political changes, one should not underestimate the importance of the CSTO Summit in Yerevan, because it became a kind of an X-ray image that has revealed the problems in the relations among the CSTO member states, Russian analyst Sergey Markedonov has told ArmInfo.
On October 14, Friday, Yerevan hosted the meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council and Belarus assumed the CSTO chairmanship. Following the 3-hour meeting of the CSTO leaders behind the close doors, over 20 documents were signed, however, Nikolay Bordyuzha remained the CSTO Secretary General.
"The Summit was held against quite a complicated background given that the relations between Russia and the West have hit a new bottom over the past few months, and judging by the results of the Lausanne talks one should not wait for even insignificant improvements. The CSTO member states have no single viewpoint about this confrontation, because Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have their own particular relations with the West. For instance, Yerevan is afraid that the escalation of the confrontation between Washington and Moscow will result in the paralysis of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is fraught with new incidents along the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh," he says.
Markedonov thinks that postponement of the appointment of a new CSTO Secretary General is not a way out of the situation, because the later this problem is solved, the more questions it will cause, first of all, it will question the unity in the CSTO. Even the adoption of the CSTO Strategy till 2025 will not save the situation, he says.
The analyst thinks that Yerevan summit has demonstrated that the CSTO has a long way to go before turning into a Eurasian NATO. The allies are not ready to support a single point of view and the CSTO seems to have several common interest clubs. Only Moscow is willing to simultaneously tackle the problems of Central Asia and deal with the Western and Caucasus directions, carefully directing the multilateral orchestra and avoiding abrupt movements.