Meeting with CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Imangali Tasmagambetov on 20 November.

“You and I are facing an important task. We need to hold a session of our military-political alliance at a high organizational level. I would like, first of all, to hear from you if there are any issues in the run-up to this event. A very important event. We are preparing very seriously for this summit,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

Speaking about the CSTO, the president acknowledged that the post-Soviet space is going through a difficult phase. First of all, this is due to conflict situations, including in the CSTO area of responsibility. “But we are prepared for this, and I hope that this summit of the military-political organization in Minsk will help build up our efforts to strengthen defense and security of CSTO members,” the president said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko welcomed the resolution of the conflict situation between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the south of Central Asia.

The confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan also ended. “We need to think about the future - how the two states are going to live there,” the Belarusian leader emphasized.

“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 chaired it [the CSTO in the current inter-sessional period]. But it was during that period that some progress was achieved and the situation started calming down in the post-Soviet space. I emphasize once again that this is the area of responsibility of the CSTO, because both Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are the CSTO members,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.