Uzbekistan has no plans to rejoin the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said on Wednesday, indicating the country's policy would remain the same despite a leadership change, according to media reports.
“The question of renewing our CSTO membership is not on the agenda,” Kamilov said in a televised interview on July 5.
“There are no plans to discuss or review this matter in the future,” he added.
Currently, three out of Central Asia’s five nations – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – are CSTO members.
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.
