Kazakhstan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan state they are unaware of CSTO Military Committee's statement condemning downing of Russian plane by Turkey

"The participants of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Military Committee session unanimously supported Russia's actions in Syria, and condemned Turkey, whose warplane shot down the Russian Su-24 in late November," TASS quoted Chief of Armenia's Armed Forces General Staff Yuri Khachaturov as saying. To note, at the session Khachaturov assumed the chairmanship in the Military Committee.  

"All the chiefs of General Staffs of the CSTO member countries supported Russia's stand and considered Turkish aggression as sordid," he said, adding that it was "a stab in the back". According to him, the participants of the session "supported Russia in all its decisions. We stand with Russia in all matters. The CSTO is united as never before. We will reinforce. All the decisions made at today's session speak in favor of my words".  

For his part, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov said "We paid special attention to the discussion of the downing of our warplane over Syria and all the chiefs of the General Staffs unanimously condemned Turkey's act and supported Russia's stand." 

However, it is noteworthy that today Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Belarus have made some clarifications on that statement. According to haqqin.az, the General Staff of Kyrgyzstan's Armed Forces stated that Kyrgyzstan "did not authorize General Khachaturov to make a statement on behalf of the General Staff of our country.  We are unaware of that statement. Bishkek has always advocated cooperation among the countries. Both Turkey and Russia are our strategic partners and we advocate sooner normalization of the Ankara-Moscow relations". For his part, Colonel Vladimir Makarov, the head of the press office of the Belarusian Defense Ministry said, "We know nothing about General Khachaturov's statement. Therefore, we cannot comment on it, especially as no one authorized him to speak on behalf of Belarus". The Defense Ministry of Kazakhstan has issued a similar statement, saying that it did not authorize Khachaturov to speak on behalf of Kazakhstan. "The Defense Ministry of Kazakhstan does not assess the foreign political developments, because it is the prerogative of the Foreign Ministry. Ankara has already expressed its attitude to the downing of the warplane, as well as to the tension in the Russian-Turkish relations," the statement says. In addition, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev urged Russia and Turkey to set up a joint commission to investigate the incident and to restore the relations.