BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

01/08/2009

Russia to continue chairing CSTO until Belarus takes over

MOSCOW, August 1 (Itar-Tass) - Russia will continue performing the technical functions of the chairman in the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization /CSTO/ until Belarus gets ready to accept them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday.

"Russia will continue technical chairmanship in the CSTO until the moment when Belarus is ready to take over the full-fledged functions of this rotating chairmanship," he said.

According to Lavrov, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko promised at the CSTO summit earlier this week to consider the issue and pass appropriate decisions in due time.

Russian President's aid, Sergei Prikhodko said on the eve of the summit Moscow was ready to pass the rotating functions of chairman over to Belarus.

The Belarusians were expected to accept the chairmanship from Armenia at the organization's summit in Moscow in June but President Lukashenko did not come to Russia then, as a row over Belarussian dairy products was picking pace at the moment, and Russia had to take the technical coordinator's functions on itself.

"We're ready on our part /to turn the chairmanship over to Belarus/, but that country should tell us about it," Prikhodko said.

"We proceed from the assumption that Minsk will sign the package of documents /including the ones on setting up the CSTO rapid reaction forces/ that were adopted by all the participants in the Moscow summit, because otherwise what is the sense of coming here?" he said.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14197821&PageNum=0

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