Collective Security Treaty Organization summit opens in Belarus
ITAR-TASS, Russia
June 23 2006
23.06.2006, 17.38
MINSK, June 23 (Itar-Tass) – The second summit in a day opened y in
the Belarussian capital Minsk on Friday with the participation of
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He attends the meeting of the Council of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO) together with the presidents of Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia – Alexander Lukashenko,
Nursultan Nazarbayev, Emomali Rakhmonov, Kurmanbek Bakiyev and Robert
Kocharyan.
The presidents are to sign later in the day a document on the action
of the Collective Rapid Deployment Forces of the Central Asian region.
"The agreement on the procedure of rapid deployment, use and
comprehensive support of the Collective Rapid Deployment Forces will
be of much importance for development of cooperation in the military
sphere," a high-ranking Kremlin source told Itar-Tass.
CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha said that the task was "to
transform the CSTO in an evolutional way from the military-political
block into an international multifunctional universal organization
able to react by collective efforts to all categories of challenges
that the states confront".
"Apart from the military component, we shall seriously develop the
political cooperation and attend to the formation of a peacekeeping
potential," Bordyuzha said meeting Putin a month ago.
He then said that the peacekeeping forces "will be used both within
the boundaries of operation of the CSTO and beyond the boundaries of
the Organization on a UN mandate".
The Kremlin administration source said that "matters of further
improvement and enhancement of the effectiveness of the Organization’s
activity, development of the integration in military and other areas
of cooperation are in the centre of attention of the Council of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization".
"Thorough analysis of the military-political situation in the CSTO
operational area and adjacent areas will be carried out at the summit,"
the Kremlin official said.
Bordyuzha said that the CSTO was pursuing "concrete measures to stop
the Afghan drug traffic".
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the CSTO could have
effectively interact with NATO in this area. He expressed regret that
the Western alliance "is still not ready to establish cooperation
with the CSTO".
The Kremlin source also said that the presidents would pay "serious
attention to matters of interaction of CSTO member states in prevention
of illegal trade in small and light arms".
"It is planned to coordinate a text of a CSTO statement at a UN
conference on this problem", he said.
The six former Soviet republics signed the Collective Security Treaty
in 1992 months after the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent
States.
Ten years later, in May 2002, the treaty was transformed into the CSTO.
Its key goal is national security and the territorial integrity of
every member state.
The CSTO has the obligation to provide necessary help, including
military one, in case of emergence of a threat to any of its members.
The CSTO system includes regional subsystems that operate in three
areas – East European, engaging a Russian-Belarussian military
grouping; Caucasian that is in charge of the Russian-Armenian grouping;
and Central Asian, where the Collective Rapid Deployment Forces were
formed for the region in 2001.
The participation in the CSTO also envisions political cooperation
of the member states.
One of important goals of the CSTO is creating a mechanism for
coordination of political stances of the members on events in the
international life.