DUSHANBE, April 8, 2014, Asia-Plus – Issues related to development and improvement of a joint CIS air defense system are a major topic of the 40th meeting of the CIS Air Defense Coordinating Committee that is being held in Yerevan, Armenia today.
Tajikistan is represented at the meeting by Major-General Rahmonali Safaraliyev, Commander of Tajikistan’s Air and Air Defense Forces.
“Members of the Committee are discussing issues related to development and improvement of the joint CSI air defense system,” an official source at the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan (MoD) told Asia-Plus in an interview.
The meeting participants are also reviewing the results of the Coordinating Committee’s work in 2013 and discussing joint operational and combat training events for the CIS air defense system in 2014 and priority research projects in the field of air defense.
Joint CIS Air Defense System (is a unified system that comprises air defense units and elements of the former Soviet republics under control of AA Defense Coordinating Committee of the CIS. Currently there are 6 de facto members of JADS: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. It was established by 1995 Almaty agreement. This agreement was also signed by Georgia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, however Georgia and Turkmenistan ceased their membership in 1997, while Ukraine and Uzbekistan are maintaining cooperation with Russia on bilateral basis. The Joint CIS AD System doesn”t have a single commander. It is controlled by Air Defense Coordinating Committee of the CIS whose members are commanders of air defense troops or air forces of the member states. The Chairman of the Committee is Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force colonel-general Alexander Zelin.
