DUSHANBE, March 17, 2009, Asia-Plus — Experts from member nations of the Collective Security treaty Organization (CSTO) have gathered in Moscow for consultations on formation of the CSTO rapid reaction force, according to press release issued by the CSTO Secretariat.
For the purpose of implementing decisions made at the CSTO extraordinary summit on forming the CSTO rapid reaction force the working group has prepared legal documents regulating activity of the rapid reaction force.
According to the Deputy Secretary General of the CSTO Valery Semerikov, experts are expected to consider and coordinate proposals of the CSTO states on the legal documents.
We will recall that first Deputy Defense Minister also Chief the Defense Ministry General Staff, Lieutenant-General Ramil Nadyrov, told Asia-Plus in early February that most likely, Tajikistan will be represented in the rapid-reaction force of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) by the battalion that was committed by the country to the CSTO Collective Rapid Deployment Force (CRDF) in Central Asia.
The CRDF in Central Asia consists of battalions, committed to it by Russia and Central Asian member nations of the Organization – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The presidents of member nations of the CSTO, which groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, gathered in Moscow on February 4 to sign an agreement to create a joint rapid-reaction force. Uzbek President Islam Karimov signed the pact with reservations, agreeing to commit Uzbek forces not permanently but on a mission-to-mission basis.
The force is dedicated to defend member nations against foreign military aggression; perform special operations to counter terrorism, and drug trafficking; and help in times of natural disasters.
The current system of collective security, which is based on the regional principle, includes three regional military groups: Russian-Belarus group (Eastern European group); Russian-Armenian group (Caucasian group); and Central Asian group.
