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Belarus has not taken over security bloc’s presidency, Russian foreign minister says

Belarus has not taken over the rotating presidency of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) despite Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s presence at the bloc’s informal summit in Kyrgyzstan last week.

Russia will continue performing the duties of the CSTO presidency “pending the moment when Belarus is ready to assume the full-scale functions of the presidency,” RIA Novosti quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.

The Russian minister said with reference to Mr. Lukashenka that Minsk was considering the matter and “appropriate decisions will be made in good time.”

Belarus had been scheduled to take over the duties at a June 14 CSTO summit in Moscow, but Mr. Lukashenka boycotted the event in protest against Russia’s ban on the import of Belarusian dairy products.

At the summit five of the security bloc’s member states — Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan — signed an agreement establishing a CSTO joint rapid response force, but Minsk described the accord as invalid, citing the lack of consensus among members, and sent an appropriate note to the CSTO secretariat.

Speaking on June 18, Andrei Nesterenko, the Russian foreign ministry’s spokesman, said that Moscow hoped that Belarus would take over the CSTO presidency without delay. //BelaPAN