The Collective Security Treaty Organization (SCTO) member nations are expected to adopt a program on reinforcing Tajikistan’s common border with Afghanistan until the end of this year, an official source at Tajikistan power-wielding structure told Asia-Plus today morning.
“If the document is approved, Tajikistan will receive military-technical assistance for reinforcing its border with Afghanistan,” the source said.
According to him, the target interstate program on reinforcing the Tajik-Afghan border has been developed by the CSTO Secretariat and submitted for domestic approval.
The CSTO member nations should submit their opinions to the CSTO Secretariat during three months, the source added.
If the target program approved, Tajikistan will receive communications facilities, drones, night-vision devices and armored vehicles to reinforce its common border with Afghanistan.
Recall, the issue how to strengthen the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border was the hottest topic of the CSTO summit that took place in the Russian city of Sochi on September 23, 2013. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in particular, noted at the summit that the group resolved to “provide additional collective assistance to Tajikistan to reinforce its national border with Afghanistan.”
“We discussed the situation in Afghanistan in light of the international coalition’s troop withdrawal planned for 2014. Unfortunately, there is reason to expect a considerable rise in Afghan drug trafficking activity and in terrorist groups’ activeness. Extremists are already attempting to spread their activity into neighboring countries, including the Central Asian countries that are CSTO members,” Putin said.
Speaking at the event, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said the aid would include “constructing new buildings of frontier posts, restoring warning and signaling systems and providing border troops with means of air patrol and surveillance as well as radar.”
According to the official CSTO statement, “On the basis of a request from Tajikistan the member states of the CSTO will, according to their abilities, within three months render military-technical assistance to the border forces of the State Committee for National Security of the Republic of Tajikistan.”
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.
