DUSHANBE, July 22, 2008, Asia-Plus — A joint staff-command drill of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), dubbed Rubezh-2008, began in Armenian today.
According to the department for international military cooperation within the Ministry of Defense (MoD), the first and the second stages of the exercise are essentially political stages, during which the steps will be determined for the CSTO states and the organization as a whole to take on the basis of the situation simulated in the course of the exercise in order to reduce tensions caused in the collective security region by destructive forces, and a mechanism for ensuring a political settlement of the acute situation will be worked out.
The deputy head of the MoD general staff, Major-General Zarif Bobokalonov, is representing Tajikistan at the first stage of the exercise, the MoD source said.
The subsequent stages, when purely military actions, traditional for all command and staff exercises, are to be practiced, will be held in summer-autumn in the territories of Armenia and Russia. The military exercise is expected to involve some 4,000 military personnel from Armenia, Russia and Tajikistan.
We will recall that the Rubezh exercises have been conducted since 2005. Before that, they were conducted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The CSTO member nations are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
