Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
June 27, 2005, Monday

THE SIX PULLS IN THE DEFENSE BELT

SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 24.06.2005, p. 2

by Anastasia Kornya

“A most thorough discussion of the questions of military, technical
and political collaboration”, – by these words president Putin
characterized yesterday’s closed meeting in the Kremlin between the
presidents of the countries – members of the Organization of the Pact
on collective security (ODKB). The second day of their communication
the leaders of Armenia, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Russia and
Tajikistan devoted to military questions. The agenda was most vital: as
far as the CIS countries, affected by the colored revolutions, refuse
military-political collaboration with Moscow, Russia has to reorganize
the security system in post-Soviet space. When the presidents entered
the assembly-hall where the members of the enlarged Council on the
collective security were awaiting them, Nursultan Nazarbaev began
the traditional account on the results of the Council’s work for
the last year. (…) He only stated that during the last year the
members of the military agreement reacted rather adequately to the
new challenges and threats. The main of them, in his opinion, was
“political extremism and its extreme manifestation – terrorism”.

Judging from Nazarbaev’s words, the military of the six states have
made the greatest progress in the struggle against the narcotic
menace from the outside. The earlier fixed plan of the measures is
being performed rather successfully. The annual operation “Kanal” is
rather effective only in the last year more than 5 tons of narcotics.
However, no one pretended that it is possible to cut off the narcotic
traffic from Afghanistan. That is why the sister nations rely on the
U.N.O.’s aid. They are calling for “earnest coordination of actions
on the post-conflict settlement in Afghanistan”. To all appearances,
there has been no “earnest coordination” up to the present moment. In
addition, there is an evident lack of “resolute measures aiming to
resist the narcotic menace coming from Afghanistan”.

Besides, yesterday there took place the rotation of Heads of the States
on the position of the Chairman of the Council. Vladimir Putin took
the “baton of the leader”. (…)

At the press-conference on the results, a reporter from Armenian
television tried to found out, if there appeared any principally
new priorities in the ODKB work. “The priorities remain the same,”
explained Armenia president Robert Kocharyan. They presuppose working
in the direction of the struggle against terrorism, narcotic traffic
and all that what is now called ‘the new challenges’, in general.”
“But we must concentrate on the development of the methods”, he
highlighted. “I’ve already said and can repeat once again”, Vladimir
Putin had to enumerate again the priorities, to which he related the
development of collective collaboration in the anti-aircraft defense
sphere, production of the special military equipment, staff training.
“It was also rather useful to view the possibility of ODKB employment
for peacemaking activity”, added the Russian president.

In the rosiest light the ODKB perspectives are viewed by the president
of Byelorussia, Alexander Lukashenko. First, he explained that it was
“the most effective system in the post-Soviet area”. Then he noted
that the Russia-Byelorussian trainings were still “more profound”.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress