CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force to be established

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MOSCOW, FEBRUARY 6, NOYAN TAPAN. Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) Collective Security Council special sitting took
place on February 4 in Moscow and was conducted by the President of
Armenia presiding over at CSTO, Serzh Sargsyan. Heads of CSTO states
discussed and signed a decision to establish CSTO Collective Rapid
Reaction Force. Presenting the decision S. Sargsyan classed it as an
important step aimed at "strengthening organization’s military
component."

The decision was made due to the necessity to strengthen member
countries’ collective security and to further raise its potential, as
well as to repulse with joint participation in case of a military
aggression and to resist other challenges. The CSTO Secretary General
and Organization’s united headquarters were instructed in three months
to work out and present to the regulations bodies a package of
normative legal acts proceeding from the decision of establishment of
Collective Rapid Reaction Force. According to the signed decision, a
decision on using CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force is made by
Organization’s Collective Security Council by the principle of
consensus. Another point stipulates that the armed forces acting as
part of CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force provided by the member
countries before getting down to the mission reserved for them are in
the exclusive competence of the given countries, in the places of their
permanent dislocation.

A decision on the place and time of holding Organization’s next sitting
was made at the special sitting: it will take place in 2009 June in
Moscow. Organization’s 2009 budget was also established at the sitting.

At the Collective Security Council special sitting Nikolay Bordyuzha
was reaffirmed on CSTO Secretary General’s post.

According to the report of the RA President’s Press Office, the same
day CSTO countries’ heads took part in the Eurasian Economic Community
Interstate Council’s special sitting, where issues of establishing a
joint Anti-crisis Fund and High Technologies Center were discussed.