YEREVAN, September 17. /TASS/. The CSTO prefers to try to ease tensions on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and also between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan by peaceful means, the head of the CSTO mission’s forward group, Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov told the media on Saturday.
He said that both on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and in the Tajik-Kyrgyz border area an unpleasant situation for the CSTO had developed.
"In the meantime, it is written down in our Charter, in other documents, and in the Collective Security Treaty itself that priority is given to political and diplomatic methods. Therefore, for the time being, we are not ‘pulling the sword from the scabbard’ and are trying to resolve issues peacefully. I think that the work in this direction has great prospects both here and in the Central Asian region," he stressed.
"For today, the main task was to visit areas where clashes had occurred: sites, populated areas, Armenian side’s positions that had come under attack," the mission’s chief continued. "We are trying to be as unbiased as possible, so we are working with facts and it is too early to draw any conclusions. In general, it will be included into the overall summary of the mission’s work."
The CSTO Collective Security Council that gathered for an emergency session in the format of a video conference on Tuesday resolved to send to the country a mission led by CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas. Moreover, the council decided to set up a working group comprising secretariat staffers and servicemen of the CSTO Joint Staff for round-the-clock monitoring of the situation. A task force of the CSTO Joint Staff led by the chief of the Joint Staff, Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov, arrived in Armenia late on September 15 to assess the situation, the CSTO Joint Staff said earlier.
On Tuesday night, the Armenian Defense Ministry said that Azerbaijani forces had opened heavy fire against the settlements of Goris, Sotk and Jermuk, using artillery, large caliber guns and small arms. Baku responded that the fire came in response to provocations on the part of Yerevan. The Armenian Security Council convened an emergency meeting where a decision was made to ask Russia to use the relevant provisions of the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and also to appeal to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the UN Security Council.