DUSHANBE, November 17, 2009, Asia-Plus — Military experts from member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization today gathered in Almaty, Kazakhstan for the third round of staff negotiations on preparations for a joint military drill, dubbed, Peace Mission-2010.
According to the Tajik Ministry of Defense (MoD), Major-General Z.T. Bobokalonov, the first deputy head of the MoD General Staff, is representing Tajikistan at the negotiations in Almaty.
Kazakhstan’s news agency Kazakhstan Today reports that the negotiations participants today flew to the Otar training ground, where the Peace Mission-2010 military drill will be conducted in September 2010.
The Peace Mission-2010 drills is expected to involve some 10,000 military personnel from all member nations of the Organization.
In the meantime, some experts note that the drill will focus on exercises combating “Eastern Turkestan” militants. Eurasia Lift quoted Russian expert Vladimir Mukhin as saying that the separatism issue that emerged in Xinjiang also exists in Kazakhstan to some extent. The Kazakh government has cracked down on several separatist organizations set up by “Eastern Turkestan” activists. Some “Eastern Turkestan” armed terrorists have also appeared in Chechnya, Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations. Therefore, it is not hard to understand why the “Peace Mission-2010”
military drill, in which all SCO members will participate, is to be held at the Otar training ground near the Kazakh-China border.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by six countries: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its member states cover an area of over 30 million square kilometers, or about three fifths of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion, about a quarter of the world”s total.
