Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security Viktor Bondarev also took part in the meeting.
Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Yury Vorobyov and Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security Viktor Bondarev took part in an offsite meeting of the Council of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the governing body of the Parliamentary Assembly. The meeting was held in Yerevan, and involved all heads of parliaments (chambers of parliaments) of the Parliamentary Assembly’s member countries: Armenia (CSTO PA chair in 2021–2022), Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
The event was also attended by a number of guests, including Chairman of the Standing Committee of the PRC National People’s Congress Li Zhanshu (via videoconference) and a delegation of the Iranian parliament. President of the National Assembly of People's Power of the Republic of Cuba Esteban Lazo sent a message of greetings.
The meeting’s agenda included matters related to Armenia’s efforts to tackle security challenges and threats in the context of implementing its CSTO chairmanship priorities in 2022, measures to improve the CSTO’s peacekeeping potential, and development of legal standards to protect democratic elections, electoral processes and sovereignty of the CSTO member states from foreign interference in the electoral process.
The meeting also considered the problem of biological security in Eurasia. It was proposed to put on the agenda of the next CSTO PA meeting a report by the Parliamentary Commission investigating the circumstances related to the US biological laboratories in Ukraine. The importance of further cooperation between member countries of the Parliamentary Assembly in coordinating national delegations’ positions at international parliamentary venues was also emphasised.
Yury Vorobyov and other members of the CSTO PA Council’s delegation had a meeting with Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.
“The participants in the meeting noted the importance of the parliamentary dimension of the CSTO PA for implementing decisions approved by the heads of the CSTO member states, specifically the decision to ratify CSTO agreements signed by the heads of state and to harmonise legislations of the CSTO member states,” Yury Vorobyov said.
He also handed to Speaker of the National Parliament of the Republic of Armenia Alen Simonyan a note of acknowledgement on behalf of the Federation Council Speaker for his great contribution to strengthening Russian-Armenian relations.
Members of the Russian delegation, together with their colleagues from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, laid flowers at the Mother Armenia monument, thereby paying tribute to the memory of Soviet soldiers who perished during the Great Patriotic War.
The next meeting of the CSTO PA Council is scheduled to be held in the Russian Federation in autumn.