DUSHANBE, September 3, 2008, Asia-Plus — President Emomali Rahmon will attend a regular session of the council of heads of state of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that will be held in Moscow from September 5-6, according to the Tajik MFA.
The meeting is supposed to discuss the present situation in member nations of the Organization as well as state and prospects of further expansion of cooperation between them in providing security, training of personnel for appropriate services and endorse a number of documents coordinated at a session of the CSTO foreign ministers.
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 joined the Organization in 2006.
