CSTO is still far away from NATO: Azerbaijani MP

"From a legal point of view it is possible, but I do not think that the CSTO could accomplish the mission that NATO does today. First, NATO includes 26 countries. Meanwhile, almost all economically developed countries are part of this structure. During the lifetime of the NATO, the military alliance has become a military-political bloc,” he said.

"In addition, NATO has extensive experience in peacekeeping tasks in different regions. It not only participates in military operations, it is also organizes these operations and supplies. CSTO lacks many of these,” he said.

"CSTO has just 7 states. This is a regional structure. Much work should be implemented inside the CSTO to align military standards among these seven states, to increase political influence of this organization and, furthermore, to establish confidence among the CSTO neighboring states. However, this organization is an international military structure, and therefore the UN Security Council will decide whether to grant it a status similar to NATO or not. It is difficult to say what they will decide,” Mirzazade said.

"But I think that CSTO must undergo a lot in order to achieve today's results of NATO. Both in the quantitative and qualitative composition, CSTO is still far away from NATO,” he noted.

"One should bear in mind that CSTO also includes Armenia, which does not recognize international law, occupying the territory of a neighboring state, and refuses to recognize territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” he said.

"Azerbaijan participates voluntarily in peacekeeping NATO operations. Even if the CSTO receives this status, our peacekeepers will not participate in its since the organization includes also Armenia,” Mirzazade added.  

"In any case, if hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia resume, the CSTO member states will not participate in these actions on the side of Armenia against Azerbaijan. This has been stated on many occasions by officials of the CSTO participating countries,” the MP said.

/Day.Az/