ITAR-TASS, Russia
Aug 21 2008

CIS MILITARY STRUCTURE MEETING DISCUSSES FURTHER DEVELOPMENT, SOUTH
OSSETIA

Yerevan, 21 August: The meeting of the Council of Defence Ministers of
the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member countries
held here on Thursday [21 August] "showed adherence to allied
relations in the organization’s format," says a report of the Armenian
Defence Ministry circulated after the meeting.

"The defence ministers of the CSTO states discussed the military and
political situation in the zone of the organization’s responsibility
and in the adjacent districts," says the report. Col-Gen Aleksandr
Kolmakov, Russia’s first deputy defence minister, informed the members
of the Council of the causes of the tragedy in the Georgian-South
Ossetian conflict zone and of the tendencies for the development of
the situation. There was a substantive exchange of opinions about the
situation in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone and in the
entire Transcaucasian region.

The participants in the meeting "discussed the implementation of the
plan for joint military develop of the CSTO up to 2010 and beyond, and
questions of perfecting operational and combat training of the forces
and preparing means of the collective security system."

The members of the Council of Defence Ministers discussed the draft
provision for drafting, financing and implementing targeted
inter-state programmes of the CSTO. The defence ministers endorsed the
plan of joint measures for operational and combat training of the
command and contingents of the armed forces of the CSTO states for the
next year. They also coordinated the draft plan of consultations of
representatives of the CSTO countries on the foreign policy, security
and defence for the second six months of this year and the first six
months of the next year.

The defence ministers amended a number of documents in the area of
military cooperation, including the normative-legal base regulating
the activity of the rapid deployment collective forces in the Central
Asian collective security region. It was decided to sets up an
interstate working group to take measures to create a uniform system
for technical protection of railways of the CSTO countries and to
implement the organization’s budget.

In accordance with the CSTO procedural rules, the powers of chairman
of the Council of Defence Ministers for a regular period between the
sessions were vested in Armenia’s Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan. The
meeting endorsed the draft decision of the Collective Security Council
to appoint Col-Gen Yuri Khachaturov, the Armenian deputy defence
minister, as the CSTO joint chief of staff for a regular period
between the sessions.

The CSTO includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress