Armenia assumed the rotating 2022 chairmanship of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post-Soviet security bloc, comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan.
The chairmanship was handed over to Armenia by Tajikistan at the organization’s session in September 2021. In 2022, it will be handed over to Belarus in late 2022. The member states chair the organization in turn, according to alphabetical order.
The secretary-general of the organization is appointed for three years (regardless of the country’s chairmanship), while the Permanent Council is led by a representative of the state that holds the chairmanship in rotation.
This year, the CSTO will celebrate two anniversaries - the 30th anniversary of the Treaty on Collective Security and the 20th anniversary of the current organization’s formation.
Armenia has already set the priorities for the presidency of the organization, taking into account the challenges of recent years. These include increasing the effectiveness of the CSTO, as well as the further development of the military component of the organization. Other traditional priorities of the organization, including the fight against terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, and illegal migration, remain.
One of the new priorities of the CSTO is the confrontation with biological threats. A Coordinating Council of Authorized Bodies on Biosafety will be set up under the Committee of Secretaries of the CSTO Security Councils.
