Photo: Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov

Russia and Armenia signed an agreement on establishing the Combined Regional Air Defense System in the Caucasian Collective Security Region on Wednesday, TASS reports.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and his Armenian counterpart Seyran Ohanyan put their signatures to the document. The agreement was signed after the ministers’ bilateral meeting.

The two defense ministries also signed a cooperation plan for 2016.

Mutual cooperation plans for 2016 also were signed with other defense ministers, with whom Sergey Shoigu met in bilateral meetings – Kyrgyz General Staff Chief Colonel Zhanybek Kaparov, Tajik Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Sherali Mirzo, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Col. Gen. Zakir Gasanov and Kazakh Defense Minister Imangali Tasmagambetov. The meeting of the Russian and Azeri defense ministers was held under the closed doors.

“We have approved for 2016 a plan of work of the Defense Ministers’ Council of the CIS countries and a plan of common steps on the joint air defense system,” Shoigu said summing up the results of the meeting.

At the meeting, the ministers revised a cooperation plan for troops of the joint air defense system and the documents regulating the work of the coordination committee on the air defense issues at the CIS Defense Ministers’ Council.

A number of bilateral meetings were also held, Shoigu said. “During the talks, we discussed a broad range of issues of cooperation in the military and military-technical spheres. The plans of bilateral cooperation of the defense ministries were signed for the next year,” he said.

The participants of the meeting confirmed plans to further develop partnership based on the balance of common, regional and national interests.