CSTO Secretary General anticipates impartial joint investigation of Gyumri tragedy

On January 19, CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha had a phone talk with Defense Minister of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan.

As the CSTO press office told Eurasia Daily, the sides discussed fulfillment of the decisions on military cooperation that were adopted at the December (2014) meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council and the situation in the Caucasus region of the collective security amid “continuing growing tension on the Line of Contact and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border caused by regular shelling from the bordering country.” They stressed the need of defusing the tension, saying there was no alternative to peaceful settlement of the conflict.

 “As for the tragic incident – a family murder – in the town of Gyumri, CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha extended his condolences to the relatives and friends of those killed and to the fraternal people of Armenia. He expressed confidence in thorough and impartial investigation into that tragedy and in a fair punishment of all those found guilty in the crime,” the source reports.

As EAD reported earlier, on January 12, Valery Permyakov – a soldier of the 102nd Russian military base deployed in the town of Gyumri, Armenia – left his post and strayed into the town. He penetrated in one of the houses and shot dead six members of the Avetisyans family, including a two-year-old girl, and stabbed a six-month-old baby-boy of the same family. He was detained by Russian frontier guards when trying to cross into Turkey later on the same day. This incident sparked public outrage in both Gyumri and Yerevan.  People went to the streets demanding that Permyakov stands trial in Armenia.