Kazinform, Kazakhstan
Nov 30 2004

CSTO SC secretaries to discuss situatn in CSTO responsibility zone.

Yerevan, November 30. KAZINFORM. The military and political situation
in the zone of responsibility of the Collective Security Treaty
Organisation (CSTO) and prospects of cooperation among the CSTO
states will be prioritised at the tenth meeting of the committee of
the CSTO Security Council secretaries on Tuesday, Kazinform refers to
Itar-Tass. Partakers of the meeting will consider the fight with
terrorism and other threats to the CSTO states, press secretary of
the Armenian Security Council secretary Seiran Shakhsuvaryan told
Itar-Tass.

The heads of the CIS drug control agencies will take part in the
current forum. Therefore the action Channel-2004 that is aimed
against international drug trafficking will be considered at the
meeting.

“At present all countries have common problems and challenges,” CSTO
Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha said. He noted that “at present
no military threat exists, and there are absolutely other threats.”
“Two of them – drugs and terrorism concern most of all countries all
over the world including in the Caucasus,” he emphasised. Accoridng
ot Bordyuzha, “the CSTO should be adapted primarily to those security
problems that exist in our countries.”
The secretaries of the CSTO Security Councils will consider
military-technical cooperation and training of military personnel.

Practical results have been achieved in this field. Russian weapons
are already supplied on internal prices in the CSTO states. Russia
will train military specialists from the CSTO states next year,
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov reported to President Vladimir
Putin the other day.

The CSTO states believe that the intensification of military activity
is an important direction of the CSTO activity. The military groups
that exist in the CSTO states are being modernised. These are the
Russian-Armenian group in the Caucasus, Russian-Belarussian group and
the rapid deployment collective forces in Central Asia.

Armenia that hosts a meeting of the CSTO Security Council secretaries
for the second time gives close attention to the cooperation among
the CSTO states on the bilateral and multilateral basis. The
republic’s authorities believe that Russian military and border
presence is an important component of Armenian security.