Armenian defence chief discusses military cooperation at CIS summit
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
23 Jun 05
[Presenter] A summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) began in Moscow today. The heads of the CIS states are taking
part in the summit. Foreign and defence ministers and secretaries of
the security councils will join them later.
[Correspondent Lilit Sedrakyan from Moscow by telephone] A summit of
the CSTO began in the Kremlin today. The presidents of six CIS states,
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, are
taking part in the summit. They will discuss future cooperation of the
CIS countries. Later the six countries’ foreign and defence ministers
and secretaries of the security councils will join the presidents.
[Armenian President] Robert Kocharyan is to meet Armenian students in
the afternoon to discuss the problems of Armenian students studying in
the Russian capital.
[Presenter] The CSTO summit has been followed by a meeting of the
foreign and defence ministers and secretaries of the security
councils.
[Correspondent Voskan Mamikonyan from Moscow by telephone] The CIS
council of foreign ministers, in which Armenian Deputy Foreign
Minister Gegam Garibdzhanyan presented Armenia, today discussed
problems existing in the CIS member countries’ interstate
relations. They mainly discussed the fight against terrorism,
extremism and drug trafficking in the CSTO area. The situation in
Afghanistan was also discussed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
noted that the organization has carried out serious work to resolve
these problems.
[Gegam Garibdzhanyan, captioned] During the meeting, programmes were
approved to be implemented in the future. I must note that an intense
work was carried out and the documents were adopted. I think that if
we keep the tempo, we will be able to implement our minimum programme
by the foreign ministers’ meeting to be held in August.
[Correspondent] The foreign ministers’ meeting was immediately
followed by a meeting of the CIS security council secretaries which
discussed military-technical and military-economic cooperation between
the CIS member countries. The secretary of the security council under
the Armenian president and defence minister, Serzh Sarkisyan,
represented Armenia at the session.
The third session of the CIS defence ministers was held at the CIS
united headquarters in the afternoon. Serzh Sarkisyan represented
Armenia. The session discussed a collective security plan, agreements
on the establishment of combined forces in Central Asia, the
establishment of a common air defence system and military training.