Report: ex-Soviet security body to sign military agreements at summer summit

AP Worldstream
Mar 09, 2005

Members of an ex-Soviet states’ security body plan to sign agreements
on military cooperation at a summer summit, a senior foreign ministry
official said Wednesday, the Interfax news agency reported.

Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the security
arm of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a 12-nation
grouping of former Soviet republics, have agreed a set of accords
aimed at strengthening the body, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei
Razov. He did not specify the date.

Razov said the deals will involve an agreement on training personnel
and shipping military products between member states at lower prices.

The Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty unites six ex-Soviet
republics _ Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus and
Armenia. Ukraine and Georgia, where pro-Western governments have come
to power, are not members of the security body although they belong
to the CIS.

Razov also said foreign ministers of CIS member states will meet in the
Belarusian capital Minsk on March 18 to discuss ways of improving and
streamlining the work of CIS bodies. If a draft document on the reform
is adopted, it will then be discussed at the CIS summit in Moscow in
May, held as part of ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the
end of World War II.