DUSHANBE, August 16, 2016, Asia-Plus – Defense Ministry delegations from the member nations of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have gathered in the Armenian capital of Yerevan for the CSTO defense ministers’ meeting that is being held there today.
Tajikistan is represented at the meeting by Deputy Defense Minister, Colonel Abdulhoshim Ghulomzoda, an official source at the Ministry of Defense (MoD) told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, the meeting is focused on issues related to functioning and development of the collective security system, measures to improve activities of the CSTO Unified Staff, and perspective planning of military cooperation between the CSOT member nations.
Besides, the meeting participants are discussing creation of basic scientific and research institutions in the fields of air and anti-missile defense, as well as military heraldic symbols, the source said.
The CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha and the CSTO Unified Staff Chief, Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov, are also participating in the session.
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.
