CSTO FORMALIZES PLANS TO CREATE PERMANENT MILITARY FORCES

malizes-plans-to-create-permanent-military-forces/
June 15th, 2009

MOSCOW (Combined Sources)-Heads of State from the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO) have signed an agreement to establish a
permanent military force for the post-soviet alliance. The Presidents
of Armenia and Russia announced on Sunday in a press conference
following a CSTO summit in Moscow.

The official agreement to form the military force came three months
after it was announced that the CSTO would hold military exercises
for the new military units in Kazakhstan this September.

"The document that has been signed includes an agreement on collective
forces and a decision by the Collective Security Council on the
rapid-reaction force structure," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

"I think a great work has been done," said Armenian President Serzh
Sarkisian, commenting on the end of his country’s one year presidency
of the CSTO. "The creation of the rapid-reaction forces and the
coordination of [CSTO] member states’ foreign policies are evidence
that serious work has been done over the past year."

The forces, which Medvedev said "will be just as good as comparable
NATO forces," are expected to counter such threats as military
aggression, terrorist activities, trans-border crimes and drug
trafficking.

More importantly, it will add a military dimension to the alliance,
which so far has served mostly as a forum for consultations.

The CSTO, a security group comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, agreed in early February
to form rapid reaction forces.

The new forces will consist of large military units from Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, RIA Novosti said. Those
military units will be armed with modern compatible weapons and
military hardware, said the Itar-Tass news agency.

The document also includes a number of action plans for CSTO members
to implement until 2012.

Two CSTO member states, Belarus and Uzbekistan, however, did not sign
the document. Uzbekistan cited "some doubts" and Belarus, which was to
assume the rotating CSTO presidency from Armenia did not attend the
summit over Russia’s banning of dairy products from the country. The
alliance’s presidency was transferred to Russia temporarily.

Medvedev said he believes the two countries will eventually sign
the agreement.

In related news, Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian met
with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov Sunday on the sidelines of
the CSTO conference. The two met in "a warm and sincere atmosphere"
after the conference for talks on deepening their bilateral relations,
the Russian Foreign Ministry said, adding that they also discussed a
"wide range of regional and international issues."