DUSHANBE, April 6, 2012, Asia-Plus — A meeting of the Air Defense Coordinating Committee under the CIS Council of Defense Ministers has opened in Dushanbe today.
According to the press center of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Tajikistan, the meeting, presided over by Colonel-General Aleksandr Zelin, Commander-in-Chief of Russia’s Air Force, has brought together senior representatives from the defense ministries of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Tajik delegation is led by Major-General Rahmonali Safaraliyev, Commander of Air Force and Air Defence.
The meeting is expected to consider more than 20 issues related to improvement and development of Joint CIS Air Defense System and expansion of military cooperation between the CIS nations in the field of air defense, the source said.
Joint CIS Air Defense System (JADS) is a unified system that comprises air defense units and elements of the former Soviet republics. Currently there are de-facto 6 members of JADS: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. It was established by 1995 Almaty agreement. This agreement was also signed by Georgia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan; however Georgia and Turkmenistan ceased their membership in 1997, while Ukraine and Uzbekistan are maintaining cooperation with Russia on bilateral basis.
General aims of Joint AD System are the following: protection of air boundaries of the CIS member states; joint control of the CIS airspace; monitoring of aerospace posture; and air/missile strike early warning and coordinated response to it.
The Joint CIS AD System doesn”t have a single commander. It is controlled by CIS Air Defense Coordinating Committee whose members are commanders of air defense troops or air forces of the member states. The Chairman of the Committee is Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force Colonel-General Aleksandr Zelin.
