CSTO LEADERS SIGN DRAFT DEAL TO FORM COLLECTIVE FORCE – MEDVEDEV

Itar-Tass
04.02.2009, 14.06

MOSCOW, February 4 (Itar-Tass) – The CSTO leaders coordinated and
signed a draft document to form collective reaction force, Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev said.

"We coordinated a draft document to form collective forces," Medvedev
said at a plenary session on Wednesday.

"We all agreed that it was necessary to solve this problem,"
he stressed.

The Russian president thanked his colleagues for the constructive work.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who is presiding in the CSTO, said,
"The creation of CSTO collective force is designed to strengthen CSTO
military components". "This will help us strengthen our potential,"
he added.

Earlier, presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko said, "Practical steps
will be considered to create a CSTO collective rapid reaction force
that might be used to rebuff military aggression, conduct special
operations against international terrorism and violent manifestations
of extremism, transnational organised crime and drugs trafficking,
and also for the elimination of effects of natural and technogenic
emergencies."

The Russian presidential aide recalled that currently each CSTO
member-state had its own rapid reaction force to be committed to
action in case of the emergence of common threats. "What will make
the proposed=2 0collective force so unique is that they will have a
permanent base in Russia, to which all other countries will delegate
their contingents," Prikhodko said, "Presumably, the force will be
created on the basis of the 98th paratroops division and the 31st
assault airborne brigade. Also, there are ideas of reinforcing them
in the final stage with Emergency Situations Ministry units and,
probably, with police. We are putting finishing touches to the draft
agreement and it is our hope we shall have it signed."

"The decisions the early CSTO summit is to make are expected to
take cooperation among CSTO allies to a new level and enhance the
organisation’ s role as a key stabilising factor in the post-Soviet
space," the Russian presidential aide said.

Before 2002 the CIS countries carried out their collective security
cooperation under a relevant treaty concluded on May 15, 1992. On May
14, 2002 the permanent signatories to the treaty transformed their
cooperation into a regional organization.

The Collective Security Council consisting of the member-countries’
heads of state is the CSTO supreme body, empowered to consider all
fundamental aspects of the organisation’s activity.