The Minister of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan will chair the CIS Interior Ministers' Council in accordance with an order and the transfer of those powers to Russia by the Armenian side has no legal basis, a source at the office for the Coordination of the Fight Against Organised Crime and Other Dangerous Types of Crime on the Territory of CIS Participant-States (BKBOP) told RIA Novosti.
Earlier on Monday Armenian police sent a message to delegates of the upcoming Council of Interior Ministers of the CIS countries meeting in Baku to protest at the extradition from Hungary and the subsequent pardon of Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov, and declared its refusal to participate in the meeting. According to the press service, the chief of the Armenian police transfers power of chairmanship of the Council of CIS Minister of Internal Affairs to the Russian minister.
"According to regulations of the CIS Interior Ministers' Council, the transfer of authority of the board head is implemented by rotation in the Latin alphabet. So after Armenia, the chairmanship goes to Azerbaijan," the source said.
"The transfer of authority can only be carried out at the board meeting. Another format isn't provided. Therefore, the decision to transfer the powers to the Interior Minister of Russia by Armenia does not meet the regulations of the Council and is unlikely to entail any legal stature," the source told RIA Novosti.
He noted that in the case of absence of Armenian police representatives at the meeting, a summary report on the work of the board is likely to be presented by the director of BKBOP - colonel-general of police Nikolai Ovchinnikov.