CSTO members should limit sales of strategic offensive weapons to Azerbaijan - Armenian parliamentarian
MOSCOW. Sept 17 (Interfax) - Armenia plans to propose that the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) impose restrictions on the sale of strategic offensive weapons to other countries, including Azerbaijan in particular.
"Armenia, as a CSTO member, receives different types of strategic offensive weapons as a bonus option, but we have the problem that [the same types of weapons] are also sold to Azerbaijan, and we, as a CSTO member, would like to propose setting up some format to restrict such sales," Mikayel Melkumyan, the chairman of the Armenian parliamentary Standing Committee on Regional and Eurasian Integration, told journalists following a joint meeting with the Russian State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs in Moscow on Tuesday.
Armenia's representatives raised the deliveries of certain types of weapons to Azerbaijan by Russia at today's meeting, Melkumyan said.
"Of course, we can't directly tell them not to sell this hardware, but we suggest they restrict the sales of precisely strategic offensive weapons, and we will present this initiative at the upcoming CSTO Parliamentary Assembly session in Yerevan," he said.
"Armenia will host a meeting of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly in November, and the establishment of a format to regulate this sensitive issue will be brought up there," Melkumyan said.
"In any case, this subject could be addressed at the summit of the CSTO leaders" to take place in Bishkek at the end of November, he said.