Tajik President Emomali Rahmon is attending a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that is being held in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Ahead of the CSTO summit, Astana hosted joint sessions of the Organization’s Council of Foreign ministers, Council of Defense Ministers and Committee of Security Council Secretaries.
The summit reportedly brought together the presidents of Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Russia. Armenia is represented by acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
According to the CSTO Secretariat, the CSTO Collective Security Council session’s agenda includes issues of international and regional security, coordination of foreign policy activities of the CSTO member states, improving mechanisms for counteracting threats and challenges and the development of the CSTO military capabilities.
The heads of state will discuss a number of issues in private. Other agenda items will be considered during a plenary meeting that will be attended by foreign ministers, defense ministers and Secretaries of the Security Councils of the CSTO member states and also CSTO Acting Secretary General Valery Semerikov,
The Collective Security Council members will discuss international and regional security, cooperation among the CSTO member states within the organization and in the international arena.
The session’s agenda also includes a draft statement by the heads of CSTO member states on coordinated measures against individuals who participated in armed conflicts on the side of international terrorist organizations.
The session will also highlight issues related to further improvement of the military component of the Organization and a draft regulation on the coordination council of the heads of the competent authorities to counteract illegal drug trafficking in the CSTO area of responsibility.
The meeting participants are set to sign a plan of action to develop a coordinated information policy in the interests of the CSTO member states, a plan to develop a collective system to counter illegal migration through 2025 and a declaration of the CSTO Collective Security Council to reaffirm the determination to continue to coordinate foreign policy positions of the CSTO member states and to ensure the attainment of the CSTO's goals.
In 2018-2019 Kyrgyzstan will preside in the CSTO. The president of Kyrgyzstan will announce his country's priorities for the period of the presidency in the organization.
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.
