Xinhua, China
Jan 20 2005

CSTO building up military potential: Secretary General

MOSCOW, Jan. 20 (Xinhuanet) — The Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) is building up its military potential in
threatened directions, CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha said
Thursday at a Federation Council conference focused on the CSTO role
in international security.

Among the main modern threats and challenges Bordyuzha spelled
out international terrorism, illegal turnover of narcotics, illegal
migration and organized crime.

The CSTO comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia and Tajikistan and was set up in 1992.

Bordyuzha noted the coalition group is being currently created in
Central Asia and provided with practical measures. “We use the
experience of the East European group of the Armed Forces of Belarus
and Russia, as well as the Caucasian group of Russian and Armenian
troops,” he stressed.

According to him, united military-oriented systems —
antiaircraft defense, communication and information-intelligence
support are being set up based on the plan of the coalition military
building for the period up to 2010.

Bordyuzha especially noted “a privileged regime” in the CSTO
military-technical cooperation sphere, saying “supplies of military
products are carried out at internal Russian prices and without
levying the value-added tax” in it.

The conference was attended by Russian parliament members and
representatives of legislative and executive branches of power of
CSTO member states.

Apart from purely defense matters, the CSTO deals with issues
related to political and foreign policy cooperation on problems that
may emerge in its member nations and that might be provoked by a
variety of destabilizing factors, Bordyuzha said.