Yerevan makes decision on candidate to chair CSTO - source

Yerevan intends to nominate Lieutenant General Vagharshak Harutyunyan, who was Armenian defense minister (1999-2000), to the post of the secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Interfax reported.

Earlier, Armenia proposed its Collective Security Treaty Organization partners to embark on replacement of the secretary general of the organization. 

Yuri Khachaturov, CSTO secretary general, is charged with toppling constitutional order in collusion with other persons. Khachaturov was detained recently over the bloody events of March 1, 2008, but later he was released on an AMD 5-million bail.

The likely successor of Khachaturov, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, worked on different positions in Armenia’s defense. After his conflict with Robert Kocharyan, who ruled the country from 1998 to 2008, broken over the terrorist act in the parliament in 1999, Harutyunyan was degraded from lieutenant general to major general, and then dismissed.