DUSHANBE, June 7, 2016, Asia-Plus – Tajik Security Council Secretary Abdurahim Qahhorov has left for the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to attend a meeting of the Committee of Security Council Secretaries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Member Nations that will take place there on June 8.
According to the CSTO Secretariat, CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha will deliver a report on additional measures to develop the Organization collective security system to combat terrorism.
The meeting will review the decision of the CSTO Committee of Security Council Secretaries regarding the list of groups designated as terrorist and extremist organizations in the CSTO member nations.
The meeting participants will also discuss progress in the approval process of the collective security strategy for the period up to 2025, and the activities of the Coordinating Council of Chief Narcologists of the CSTO Member Nations (the meeting was recently held in Yerevan).
The Committee of Security Council Secretaries will also consider a plan of consultations on the issues of foreign policy, security and defense of the CSTO Member States in H2 2016.
While in Yerevan, Qahhorov is also scheduled to hold a number of bilateral meetings.
The regional security organization was initially formed in 1992 for a five-year period by the members of the CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) — Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which were joined by Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Belarus the following year. A 1994 treaty reaffirmed the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force, and prevented signatories from joining any “other military alliances or other groups of states” directed against members states. The CST was then extended for another five-year term in April 1999, and was signed by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. In October 2002, the group was renamed as the CSTO. Uzbekistan that suspended its membership in 1999 returned to the CSTO again in 2006 after it came under international criticism for its brutal crackdown of antigovernment demonstrations in the eastern city of Andijon in May 2005. On June 28, 2012, Uzbekistan announced that it has suspended its membership of the CSTO, saying the organization ignores Uzbekistan and does not consider its views. The CSTO is currently an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.
