Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister briefs CSTO colleagues on  Azerbaijani aggression

ArmInfo. On October 7, within the framework of Armenia's chairmanship of the CSTO, consultations of the deputy ministers of foreign affairs of the member states took  place in Yerevan in the format of a "high-level group", under the  chairmanship of Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safaryan.

According to the press service of the RA MFA, a delegation of the  CSTO Secretariat and the Joint Stuff, headed by the Deputy Secretary  General of the Organization, also took part in the consultations.

At the beginning of the meeting, Safaryan presented to his  counterparts the situation resulted from Azerbaijan's aggression  against Armenia, stressed the need for the immediate withdrawal of  the Azerbaijani armed forces from the sovereign territory of Armenia  and the unconditional observance of the ceasefire.

The Deputy Foreign Minister emphasized the need for a clear, targeted  condemnation of the killings, torture and other war crimes of  Armenian prisoners of war committed by Azerbaijan, and stressed the  importance of bringing the perpetrators to justice, as well as the  release of Armenian prisoners of war and civilians illegally detained  in Azerbaijan.

During the consultations, more than a dozen issues on the CSTO agenda  were discussed and further work on them was planned. The issue of  holding a joint meeting of the CSTO summit scheduled for November in  Armenia and the meeting of the foreign and defense ministers and  secretaries of the security councils of the organization's member  states preceding it was touched upon.

Meanwhile, as the press service of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry  reports, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Belarus Yury  Ambrazevich took part in the consultations on October 6-7 in Yerevan.

During the consultations, the parties discussed a wide range of  issues of international and regional security.  Particular attention  was paid to preparations for the upcoming meetings of the  Organization's statutory bodies, including the session of the CSTO  Collective Security Council.

On the margins of the consultations, Y. Ambrazevich held a meeting  with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of  Armenia, Vahe Gevorgyan, at which an interested exchange of views on  topical issues on the international agenda took place.